HMS Aurora: A Charles Mullins Novel (Sea Command Book 3) (6 page)

Their departure was not as professional appearing as Mullins may have wished. The weeks of swinging at anchor had resulted in their anchor cable becoming fouled in some ancient wreckage on the harbor bottom. Despite the best efforts of Mister Daley, the ship remained fast to the underwater obstruction. Some of the hands came close to rupturing themselves as they strained on the capstan bars, without effect. Probably the easiest solution would have been to simply cut the cable and leave their anchor on the bottom.

However, Mullins was not anxious to endure the questioning on why he had abandoned a perfectly good anchor on the harbor bottom.

With curious eyes about the harbor focusing on Aurora’s difficulty, Mullins took matters into his own hands. To the accompaniment of alarming sounds from the rigging, he tried to sail the ship from her predicament.

Mister Davis was visibly frantic as the ship strained at her entrapment. Although Captain Mullins had the ship under his orders, all knew the sailing master would have his fair share of the blame if Aurora was damaged during this evolution.

Suddenly, with some dangerous sounding cracking noises, the ship tore free and she was now under sail out of the harbor as though nothing untoward had ever happened. The ship had been embarrassed, but not overwhelmingly so, and those shaking heads seen about the harbor would have something else to criticize long before the ship made port again.

It was a short stretch across the Channel to Boulogne which Aurora made without further incident and Mullins soon had the ship saluting the flag of Admiral Nelson, aboard the frigate Medusa. Called aboard the flag to report, Mullins ferried over the numerous mail bags meant for the fleet, that had been in the care of the purser.

Invited into the great cabin, Captain Mullins listened to the lengthy explanation of what the French as well as themselves were up to. Nelson had no fear of the French breaking out and overpowering the British defenses. With many of the invasion craft little more than rafts, there would have to be very unusual Channel weather to permit these soldiers to navigate across in good enough order to face the defenses on shore awaiting them. He felt the small craft the French service was depending upon were a joke, and would last only minutes during a good Channel storm.

Nevertheless, the Navy would not shrink from attacking and taking any French vessel afloat. Mullins hesitantly brought up his future mission in the Mediterranean that he was ordered to commence upon after the completion of this present task. Admiral Nelson assured Mullins he would release his ship just as soon as he felt he could. In the meantime, now was the time to begin taking some prizes.

HMS Aurora was not assigned to cooperate with other warships, instead Nelson felt Mullins would be more effective operating by himself, spreading fear and doubt among the French seamen. At first light, Aurora left the fleet and made her way into coastal waters where she was to begin her patrol.

Hardly had she sank the fleet’s tops’ls below the horizon, when a motley fleet of small craft were sighted making their way along the coast. A well-found brig acting as escort, the rest of the little convoy amounted to small, locally built craft. Several were little more than rafts, propelled by gaff rigs and kept more-or-less on course by some strange-looking lee boards. A few more were little more than large rowboats, filled with seasick French troops trying to pull their way to their destination.

Aurora burst upon these craft like a wolf attacking a herd of sheep. There had yet been little time to drill the men in gunnery practice, but still the ship’s guns were able to knock the crudely crafted boats to bits. The rafts, almost as one, surrendered as soon as the guns began firing. The rowboats lasted a little longer, but eventually all of the craft were either sinking or had surrendered.

Mullins felt the vessels were useless and hardly worth sending in, but he had a flock of eager midshipmen who needed practical experience, so he sent a mid aboard each prize with a few seamen and ordered the prizes still serviceable sailed into port.

The escort brig had left its convoy long since and was trying to make its way to a coastal battery. It did find such a battery at the mouth of a little waterway flowing to the ocean, but the guns were covered with weed growth and the harbor mouth silted up. With little activity there, the defenders had become lax and, seemingly left behind by the war, paid little attention to their arms.

Without any prevaricating, Aurora followed the brig right to the harbor mouth, where the chase promptly went aground. Giving the gun battery’s complement no chance to prepare themselves, Aurora launched her boats, which landed opposite the guns and charged the defenses. The guns were taken with no losses except for the bosun’s sprained leg. After the shore battery’s magazine was prepared for destruction, Mullins left a small party ashore to attend to that detail, while he put the rest of his men back into the boats and attacked the stranded brig.

With the tide going out rapidly, there was no hope in freeing the vessel, so after forcing the brig’s crew to flee the ship, the men boarded and fired the craft. She had a substantial amount of ammunition aboard, so the explosion was most impressive when her magazine erupted.

Sailing back to Boulogne to report his actions to Admiral Nelson, the ship-sloop arrived just as a demonstration was being prepared against the purported French invasion fleet.

Determined to take or destroy the French flotilla of small craft moored before Boulogne, the boats of the fleet were manned and, accompanied by Lord Nelson’s bomb vessels, made for the enemy invasion craft.

Aurora’s boats, placed in Captain Somerville’s division, pulled toward the shore with spirit. Unfortunately, as they neared their objective, they met a strong current, which pushed them off course to the east. Unable to make his attack as ordered, Captain Somerville released the boats under his command to make for the shore and cause as much damage as possible, independently.

Now far from the designated target area, Mullins led his ships’ boats close into shore. Seeing no targets worthy of spending lives upon, he continued on back in a westerly direction. Passing a creek mouth, a small fleet was observed moored upstream. Somehow, the crews on this shipping had not been alerted by the conflict farther to their west. Mullins led his flotilla into the inlet and grounded their boats on a little beach down steam from their target.

Leaving a few boat keepers with the boats, the rest loaded themselves with equipment, and filed up a narrow trail toward the enemy craft. Most of the invasion craft were moored together just off a beach. Closer to them, however, was an armed brig. Most of her crew seemed to be onshore, watching a pig being turned on a spit over a fire, seemingly disregarding the popping sound of musketry coming from the attack to their west.

Probably a half mile away, the commander of these people perhaps judged the fighting to be too far away to concern them.

A quick council with his officers produced a plan. Dividing the force, Mullins sent the greater part under his first officer to attack the main part of the flotilla. Since the armed brig seemed to have few men aboard, he elected to attack with the few men he had with him. Upon gaining control of the brig, he intended to stand offshore a bit and punish any resistance with fire from the brig’s battery.

The attack force separated silently and Mullins led his people to the brig. Moored bow and stern to a dilapidated pier jutting out from the shore, the anchor watch on the brig was huddled up forward about a charcoal brazier, drinking wine and telling stories.

Almost casually, the Auroras’ bounded onto the brig’s deck and took the anchor watch into custody. By now, those enemy crewmembers on shore had seen the attack develop and were seen looking about for a leader to tell them what to do.

Mullins ordered the bowline cast off, and a fore staysail set, flatted out to catch the wind. The slight breeze was enough to push the bow out into the stream. As it did so, Mullins ordered the stern line cut. As the brig slowly moved out into the current, a body of enemy seamen on shore gained their nerve and advanced on the retreating ship. The brig was now far enough from shore for the enemy crew to have a good excuse for not persevering. A few had loaded weapons, and these were fired with no results.

The brig was armed with ten eight-pounder long guns along with a pair of twenty-four pounder captured British carronades. Mullins had insufficient people to handle the brig and man the long guns, but he could manage to put a few hands on one of the carronades.

Loaded with grape, the port carronade made a bloody swathe in the crowd of enemy seamen onshore. Looking upstream, the glare of blue lights was seen on the decks of some of the targeted small craft. For those craft judged unsafe to make a safe crossing of the channel, their attackers had been issued incendiary blue lights. These were a mixture of chemicals in a wooden dish that would burn fiercely with a blue glare. Placed strategically aboard the craft to be sacrificed, these would insure efficient destruction.

With all hands that had ventured onto this expedition having a solid deck under him, the flotilla set back out to sea. Early on, the hands were pleased when another cluster of ships were seen. These full-sized, ship-rigged vessels usually traded along the continents’ sea-routes. Six of them, there was no dedicated escort. Each ship had a collection of old guns, which the French seemed to be every proficient with. Again, Mullins stormed each ship in turn, giving them no chance to prepare themselves.

The enemy ships had little canvas on board that was of much use, so they were easily overtaken. The surprise came when the assigned prize crews signaled the prizes’ lading. Each ship had been converted to be a horse transport, to be used to transport remounts for the French cavalry regiments.

In this case, each transport was filled to capacity with the regiment’s mounts. Many of the animals looked to be of good stock.

The convoy smelled like a barn yard when it was first brought together. Once the captures were brought into some order, it was necessary to return, first to the fleet, then to Portsmouth, to land their captives, both human and equine. The horses especially, consumed an incredible amount of stores every day. The prizes themselves required a large proportion of Mullin’s crew, so he wanted to rid himself of their responsibility as soon as convenient.

Admiral Nelson bid them goodbye, off Boulogne, believing Aurora would not soon be returning to his command. His prediction was accurate. As soon as they anchored in Portsmouth, an officer came aboard, inquiring when they could get back to sea.

Officials of the prize court took custody of the captured ships and Mullin’s men came back aboard Aurora. There was some commotion ashore as provisions were prepared and brought aboard in the ubiquitous lighters. Working parties were mustered, and under the direction of the sailing master, the casks of salt beef and pork were struck below. Having had problems before with stores newly brought aboard, Mullins directed the next beef cask opened be one of the new issue. If any unpleasantness was found, perhaps the food could be replaced before their sailing.

Obliged to wait in port a few days while the Impress Service rounded up some men who had deserted their merchant ship, Captain Mullins found himself in a waterfront pub next to a large individual who was as near to be falling-down-drunk as one could be while remaining on his feet.

Interested in what might befall this individual, Mullins stood beside him and listened to his maunderings. It seemed this individual was Master of Ordnance here, and had just been charged with the responsibility for the care and safekeeping of a quantity of thirty-two pounder British carronades that had been removed from a captured French privateer.

Mister McCoy had no storage suitable for the guns, and resented the additional responsibility. For tuppence, he would hand them over to the Navy to be used for anchors.

In due course, McCoy satisfied Mullin’s curiosity and slowly slid from his stool to the floor. Next morning, Mullins, still waiting for the press and their charges, was walking his quarterdeck, thinking over what that ordnance master had said the night before. On the spur of the moment, he called over the deck officer and asked that his gig be readied to take him ashore.

He wondered whether this ordnance officer really did have surplus carronades to dispose of. After all, HMS Aurora had four vacant ports in which to install extra guns.

When the ship had been captured from the French, her twenty-two gun ports were filled French long eight pounders. Re-armed with British nines, four ports were left empty so she could be designated as a ship-sloop, captained by a commander, rather than a post ship, commanded by a post captain.

Mullin’s first task would seem to be finding this official. From what he had seen the previous evening, it seemed likely this ordnance officer might still be unconscious. Deciding to plan his mission carefully, he first located the ordnance office on shore. He thought he might learn of the location of McCoy’s quarters, from someone from that office.

Surrounding the building was an array of weaponry, both of naval and military varieties. Toward the rear of the building were piles of large carronade barrels. Near them were stacks of the necessary slides. Some of these slides seemed functional, but most had been damaged by the weather and lack of care. The guns themselves were rusty but given a good cleaning, serviceable enough.

Surprisingly, McCoy was present and functioning. He seemed to have no memory of their conversation of the evening before but when Mullins broached the subject, had no objection to Mullins taking as many of the heavy guns as he wished.

Assuring Mullins that he could take what he wanted by merely signing an indent, he reminded the naval officer the extra guns would not affect the ship-sloop’s rating in any manner. The men walked through the gun park, where Mullins marked the guns he wished with a piece of borrowed chalk. Piles of thirty-two pound balls were available also, exposed to the weather and slowly rusting.

Promising to send a working party later in the day to remove the weaponry, he went to the powder wharf where he attempted to persuade the master superintendent there to issue him the proper powder cartridges. These would be the same charges used in the twenty-four pounder long guns. Nothing he could say would persuade the official to issue the ready-made charges. Since the ship had already received powder to replace that shot away on the voyage out, no more bulk powder would be forthcoming, either. However, he would issue the necessary serge fabric for the shipboard fabrication of powder bags for his long nine-pounder guns.

He was told since his ship had not been issued carronades, he had no need of ammunition for them. Mullins was not dismayed at his lack of success here. He had plenty of powder aboard ship for his nine-pounder guns. His gunner would not find it difficult to make up cartridges for the carronades using that powder. If necessary, it would not be strange if he were able to augment his supply from captured enemy ammunition.

With a pair of 32 pounder guns in the two after ports, and another pair forward, Mullins felt confident in his ability to bring pain to his enemy.

Freshly provisioned, Mullins was anxious to sail before his acquisition of new weaponry became noticed, but every signal sent to the flag was answered, “Wait’.

At length, he was summoned on board the flag. The flag captain saw him and gave him the bad news.

Captain Sawyer told him that it was well known in the fleet that he was a real expert in the training of good seamen. “You are sailing for the Med, a long voyage, in which you will have plenty of time to train a crew.”

“HMS Lively however, here in the harbor, will be sailing soon for the blockade of Brest. Her crew is composed largely of convicts freed from their cells to serve in the navy. Since she will likely come in contact with the enemy very soon, it is desired she have some experienced people on board.”

“Therefore, it has been decided to exchange some of her crew with well-trained members of Auroras’, this exchange to commence immediately.”

Mullins was outraged, but was told he could do nothing about the matter. The needs of the service must come first.

When fully provisioned again, Aurora raised her anchor, setting course for Toulon. On the long voyage, there was the opportunity to give the people extra training on the guns as well as some sail drill.

His new crew were much as he had expected. Most were convicts freshly released from gaol. All of these people were shorn and washed down from head to foot, in an effort to discourage pests and disease. Almost at once he began hearing complaints from his petty officers of the men’s attitude. Mullins was not an advocate of the lash in the reform of wayward seamen, but he thought he might have to re-consider.

No enemy ships were sighted at first upon their voyage, but he did fall in with a convoy of transports delivering supplies to the ships of the Toulon blockade.

The captain of the sole escort was a post captain, far superior in rank to Mullins. Captain Jaynes of HMS Hera, a frigate of 32 guns, ordered Aurora to join the convoy as an extra escort. The remainder of the voyage was dull, boring work, all ships creeping along at the speed of the slowest.

From the commander of the blockading force at Toulon, Mullins received information on the present course of events in the eastern Mediterranean.

After launching his abortive attack on Egypt, most of Bonaparte’s invasion fleet was destroyed or captured by Admiral Nelson, although by abandoning his army, their general was able to obey orders from Paris, summoning him back to France.

Efforts to remove the stranded army from Egypt through negotiations had been tried, with little success. Initially, matters had appeared more promising. After being abandoned by their general and placed under close blockade by the Royal Navy, French General Kliéber, who had been placed in command by Napoleon before he left, decided there was no hope of victory and entered into negotiations with Captain Sidney Smith of the Royal Navy and representatives of the Turkish government. Smith and Kliéber together, with assistance from Turkish envoys, negotiated a convention allowing the French to evacuate their troops to France under honorable conditions, aboard British shipping, under a flag of truce. The London Gazette announced the terms of this convention in March 1800, and it seemed evident the conflict in Egypt had ended.

However, Lord Keith, commanding the fleet, refused to ratify the terms of the treaty and all the effort spent thus far was wasted. Keith refused to accept a surrender that would permit the French troops to return to their homeland. In his view, the French troops must go into captivity until properly exchanged. The bloody conflict resumed.

From the commodore commanding the blockading force, Mullins learned some smaller craft, including a schooner and a brig had left Toulon several days before and had disappeared in a gale. The commodore had not thought it worthwhile to pursue the fugitive shipping. After some disagreement with that commander, who wished to order Aurora to join his blockading fleet, Mullins revealed his orders, which compelled him to proceed on his independent duty on Admiralty orders. These orders prevented any other commander from interfering with his ship.

Leaving coastal France, HMS Aurora sailed southerly and, off the coast of Sardinia, sighted the brig and schooner that had escaped Toulon. She was unable to run down the schooner but the brig, low in the water, had also suffered some storm damage during her escape, and after a lengthy chase, let fly her sheets shortly before dusk.

Mister Daley took the launch over to inspect the prize. Leaving behind the prize crew with Mister Adolphus in command, he returned to Aurora to report.

“She is packed full of wheat, Captain,” reported the first officer. “The brig was to proceed to Alexandria, deliver this cargo to General Kliéber, then take aboard such of his people he designated for the return voyage to France.”

“Very well”, replied his captain. “Who do you have commanding the prize?”

Daley said, “Mister Adolphus has been doing a good job for us. I put him in command.”

Mullins grimaced. “Well, the Palace told us we were to give him the standard training all of our midshipmen receive. I guess they will not be able to complain should something happen to the lad.”

The first officer replied, “In my opinion, the worst that could befall him would be for Lord Keith to nab him and take him aboard the flag.”

A good bosun’s mate was sent to the prize to back up Adolphus and it soon squared away to the wind and set course for Gibraltar while Aurora continued down the Sardinian coast and out into the Med. Once well away from land, their masthead lookout reported a sail in sight.

It proved to be the schooner that had evaded them earlier, or at least, one very much alike. She did not behave at all as she had on the earlier encounter. She seemed very sluggish in responding to Aurora’s maneuvers, almost as if she had a very inexperienced crew aboard.

Aurora was able to approach quite close before the schooner seemed to awaken and evade her with the same facility as she had earlier. Mister Davis was standing beside the helm now and Mullins commented to the sailing master on the schooner’s improvement in her sail drill.

Davis grunted, “The captain on that schooner wants something from us. She is leading us by the nose.”

Mullins had been wondering about that very possibility. Try as he might, he was unable to fathom where that schooner was trying to lead them.

The reason became apparent in the afternoon watch when more sails were sighted. A small convoy was making its way toward the southeast. The convoy consisted of the various small shipping likely to be encountered in the Mediterranean. The escort however was a twenty-eight-gun frigate, probably carrying eight and twelve-pounder guns, and flying a French commission pennant.

There was an exchange of flag signals between their chase and the frigate. The schooner made for the convoy, while the frigate broke away and stood out to meet Aurora. Mullins believed the frigate would have no compunction with engaging this former French corvette. In French service, she would have been armed with eight-pounder long guns and surely the British would not re-arm her with substantially larger weapons.

Mullins however had no fears of an encounter. Aurora was now armed with four additional heavy carronades the enemy would not expect. One or two thirty-two pound balls from these guns would likely cause desperate damage to this lightly built frigate. To be effective though, he must close the frigate as much as possible.

Having only received his carronades recently, there had been little time for his gun crews to become familiar with them, so he handed the ship over to Mister Davis to handle while he took care of the gunnery. He knew Mister Daley should more properly be controlling the guns, but felt in light of his own greater experience, he should do the task himself.

As the two ships closed, the frigate swerved a bit to port and fired off her forward starboard guns. The frigate’s shot grouping was poor, with three of the four rounds fired splashing randomly into the sea. The fourth struck aft of the main chains and injured three men with splinter wounds.

Doggedly, Mister Davis maintained course, straight for the enemy. Mullins also kept his eye on the enemy, continually talking to his gun crews, explaining what was going on and assuring them of the damage their guns were about to cause to the enemy

At length, now close to the enemy, they were well within range of the frigate. Mullins ordered his gun crews to fire when ordered, then keep pumping heavy balls at the frigate until told to stop. They should change to grape when ordered and continue to punish the enemy. Mullins assured his people the frigate would lower her flag, if they did their part.

Deciding the time had come; Davis brought the ship around, her starboard side guns looking straight down the length of the frigate. Auroras’ gunners were ready, and at Mullin’s shout, pulled their lanyards. All of the guns fired, save one of the nine-pounders, whose flint broke in the lock. Undeterred, its gunner grabbed the smoldering match from its nearby bucket and sent his ball straight into the forward hull of the ship.

The shots did grievous harm but the pair of starboard carronades caused the most important damage. Fired at nearly point blank range into the bow of the frigate, the heavy balls ranged aft, smashing and tearing everything in which they came in contact. The base of the enemy foremast was struck by one of the big balls. The mast was not broken but it was severely weakened, held erect mostly through the aid of its stays and shrouds.