Thunder On the Sea: A Tim Phillips novel (War at Sea Book 11) (6 page)

Lieutenant Fitzhugh had some knowledge of the French language, and Phillips set him to work interviewing the new prisoners to see what could be learned of the French frigate’s whereabouts. All save one chose to remain mute. That one though, a former shop-clerk, had seen all he wished of the sailor’s life and earnestly wished to be placed upon land. He would tell all if only he could be landed at the nearest port.

Brought before Captain Phillips, he said he had heard Captain Touffet, the commander of the frigate Aphrodite discussing their destination with the officers. He understood Touffet had learned of a store of gunpowder on the island of Corsica and hoped to be able to secure it.

With this information, Phillips bade the transport farewell and had his sailing master set course for Corsica. Before parting he sent his informant onboard the ‘Sarah Reeves’ and asked her captain to set the fellow ashore the first chance he had.

Captain Phillips had no idea of the exact location on Corsica where the French frigate’s Captain expected to find his gunpowder. All that the informant knew about the matter was it was someplace on Corsica. With no other option available, he decided to proceed to the island and circumnavigate it, hoping to come upon Aphrodite.

As they approached the northernmost point of the island, among a large fleet of fishing vessels, their lookout spotted a large ship rigged vessel. Almost certain this was their quarry, Phillips ordered the ship cleared for action.

Having heard the enemy was short on powder, Phillips was surprised when the Aphrodite turned out to meet him. Not at all sure of what he was doing, he ordered his ship to proceed directly toward the enemy. As they approached, bowsprit to bowsprit, the Aphrodite turned slightly to starboard. Ordering Prince Rupert to also come slightly to starboard, the two ships approached beam to beam only a few hundred yards distant.

His crew have been practicing their gunnery drill almost daily since leaving England, and were now quite proficient. Prince Rupert was a fairly new ship, tightly constructed. With such a ship, armed with nine pounder guns as she was, he had no qualms in ordering a simultaneous broadside. The noise was deafening as every single gun on Rupert’s port side fired as one.

He had spent hours thinking about the orders he should give when the ship’s engaged in combat. The only intelligent plan he could come up with, was a hit and run attack. In other words, after firing off a broadside, he should clear the area temporarily and examine the situation again.

While he had heard the crashing blast of the enemy’s return fire, he could see little sign of any damage to his ship. There was a hole in the mizzen tops’l as well as a few severed shroud lines. By contrast, there were a multitude of wounds in the Aphrodite’s beam. Apparently, the enemy had fired high hoping to disable Prince Rupert’s rigging. Surprisingly, he had not noted any large caliber guns on the enemy frigate firing at him. They all seemed to be 12 pounders or smaller.

The post ship came about sweetly on her captain’s order and went after Aphrodite again. The French frigate put the wind on her starboard quarter and sailed away from her antagonist. This was curious. The Aphrodite was twice the size of Prince Rupert and had nearly twice the number of guns, although not of large-caliber as expected. Why was she running?

As the post ship approached from astern, the muzzle of a large gun appeared in the stern window on the enemy ship, followed by another. Unlike the guns fired during the recent action, these appeared to be 24 pounders, much too large for the little post ship to face willingly. The two ships paced each other for the remainder of the day. Whenever the pursuer got too close, Aphrodite belched out a 24 pound ball or two. The practice of the enemy big guns was curious. Several times, when the post ship approached her quarry too closely, balls fired from those guns fell much too short. In addition, the smoke clouds produced by their firing seemed much too thick. Phillips was beginning to believe the enemy captain did have trouble with damp powder.

After following the enemy ship all day, Phillips was beginning to get a sense of its commander. Clearly the fellow did not want to engage him man-to-man and gun to gun. Even in the stern chase, the enemy was miserly with its use of the two heavy guns in the stern windows.

Suspecting the enemy captain was very short of ammunition, Phillips made other plans. As dusk approached, his lookouts came down as they normally would for the night. Usually, at night lookouts were placed around the deck, forward and aft, port and starboard.

There was only a sliver of moon, and that was frequently hidden by cloud cover. Allowing the enemy ship to pull ahead a bit, during one of the dark spells, Phillips ordered the lookouts back into the tops. There were two night glasses aboard ship. These glasses were especially made to have superior light gathering properties, making it easier to distinguish ships in the dark of night.

One curiosity of these glasses was the image they presented to the viewer was always upside down. Normally Phillips did not allow these valuable glasses to go above deck, but in this case, his first and second officers took them into the main and foretops which they occupied with the lookouts. A midshipman messenger went with them. As the dark of night became more intense, the messenger came sliding down a backstay. He reported Mister Fitzhugh had seen the frigate altering course to port.

Accordingly, Prince Rupert continued on her own course, but sent up her t’gallant masts. Once sail was set on these mass, Prince Rupert gained a few knots in speed. The two ships were now out of sight of each other. Phillips was just guessing about his enemy’s course, but suspected she would continue toward Corsica. Accordingly, once he judged he was abreast of the enemy, he edged a few points to starboard.

Hours later, at false dawn, the fore lookout hesitantly called, ‘Sail in sight’. Soon after, Mister Fitzhugh in the main top with the night glass reported, “Frigate on the starboard beam.”

Calling his officers back down, Phillips had all the sail set that Prince Rupert would bear. As the sun came up, the post ship was coming up on Aphrodite’s port bow, with all her guns run out.

Deadly earnest, Phillips ordered his people to send a crashing broadside onto the enemy quarterdeck at his command. Before he could do so however, Aphrodite first hoisted, then hauled down her tricolor. One of the post ship’s forward starboard guns fired a ball just forward of her cut water which brought the big ship to the wind.

Captain Phillips went aboard the frigate with the prize crew himself, curious to find out what was going on. As he climbed the side of Aphrodite, he was greeted by a side party and met by the ship’s first officer. Phillips spoke no usable French and the French officer apparently had little English, but that lieutenant beckoned Phillips to follow him. They went to the door of the Captain’s quarters and there he saw a disgusting spectacle. The captain of Aphrodite lay in a spray of blood and gore on his carpeted deck. He had shot himself in the head with a large bore pistol. Going back to the entry port, Phillips shouted down to the midshipman in charge of the boat, ordering him back to the post ship to fetch Mister Fitzhugh. He was going to need someone with more French than himself to handle all of the details of the surrender.

Lieutenant du Pont of the Aphrodite was more than willing to cooperate with his captors. He had believed all along, this plan of Bonaparte’s was complete nonsense, but felt compelled to go along with it since he felt his naval career would otherwise be threatened. He had served aboard Aphrodite before, during the war, first as aspirante, then as third lieutenant. Captain Touffet had assured him it was but a matter of time before their returned emperor had the time to reconstitute the French navy. When that happened, M. Dupont would receive his new commission and all would be well in the world.

Dupret could read between the lines as well as the next man. As events unfolded on land, it became obvious that Napoleon was not likely to prevail. A member of Louis XVIII’s court was reported to have referred to the ship as a ‘rogue pirate.’

The muffled report from the captain’s quarters and the shocking scene upon entry merely strengthened his desire to separate himself from this phase of his career. He was only too glad to offer his sword to the British officer as he came aboard.

Mister Fitzhugh went aboard Aphrodite as prize-master, with half a dozen men. It was found to be un-necessary to confine most of the crew. Except for a few die-hard followers of their emperor, most were willing to follow the orders of their captors. Lieutenant du Pont agreed to translate Fitzhugh’s orders to the French crew, who continued to man the ship.

The two ships made their way eastward to Livorno, the port British sailors always called Leghorn. In a conference with Commodore Wilson, du Pont explained the reasoning for Captain Touffet’s actions. It seemed while Touffet had become wealthy with his fleet of privateers during the war, he had always wanted to be a naval officer. He had never been able to get a commission as such.

When he saw the Aphrodite, abandoned on the stocks in that shipyard, he saw his chance. The superintendent of the shipyard was owed a vast sum of money for repairs to the ship which he doubted he would ever see. Touffet agreed to pay the sum owed, provided the remainder of the work was completed in a timely fashion. He had a problem rearming the ship. The ship had been designed to carry 18 pounder guns, but few of these were now available, with none available for private use.

The ship’s original guns had been sold by the shipyard superintendent for scrap prices to recoup some of the funds expended for repairs. M.Touffet did own a number of twelve pounder guns taken from his fleet of retired privateers, which he used to arm the frigate. There was a problem with ammunition. The only source of powder was a warehouse containing old surplus ammunition. Much of this had been exposed to damp and its efficacy was now problematical. Taking aboard a minimal supply of powder that just might serve, Touffet set sail in Aphrodite, intending to augment his ammunition from prizes.

The plan was for his ship to cause havoc amongst the British transport fleet, recoup his expenses, then offer the frigate up to Bonaparte with himself as duly commissioned captain. Unfortunately, prior to sailing, he had received a letter from Napoleon’s new Minister of Marine, informing him he was unlawfully in possession of a French national ship and it should be returned to government control immediately.

Nothing was said about a commission or his future in the Service of the Empire. A post from an old friend in the field with Bonaparte confided privately the future was in doubt. While the Emperor would strive to defeat his enemies, there were many and men and supplies were not reaching him in the quantity required. Defeat was a possibility. Touffet’s former first officer thought these difficulties, as well as his defeat by a smaller British ship the size of a corvette were the cause of his suicide.

Proceeding to Livorno, they found the fleet had sailed to Malta, without leaving word for Phillips. Irritated at the oversight, he was about to order the sailing master to set a course for Malta himself when the deck watch spotted a boat setting out from a decrepit brig in their direction. The curious aspect was a Marine lieutenant sitting in the stern, seemingly in charge.

Reporting aboard, Lieutenant Baker admitted to belong to Major Bentley’s force of Royal Marines stirring up trouble on the French coast. When Baker produced a sealed packet, Phillips invited him into the great cabin for a glass of wine.

Reading the letter Lieutenant Baker handed him, Phillips learned Major Bentley had found himself in a spot of trouble. His force had ranged along the coastline of southern France, attacking such strongpoints as were determined loyal to Bonaparte. The brig had transported the force by sea so as not to waste time marching along the poor coast roads. They had attacked and taken a small port that had a shipyard. This establishment was engaged in building a pair of vessels planned on serving as privateers in Bonaparte’s service.

The vessels under construction were burned and all military supplies destroyed or seized. It was then Major Bentley learned a military depot was located not ten miles away. Its purpose was to gather and prepare recruits for their long march to join the main army up north. Bentley reported there were often several hundred recruits present. While they were issued muskets and a limited supply of cartridge, by no means could they be regarded as front-line troops.

If HMS Prince Rupert was free to join him for this endeavor, he would like her to lie to in the harbor and fire into the depot while he assaulted the depot from the rear. Bentley assured him he had learned the single battery of guns guarding the harbor was manned by untrained men freshly recruited and should not pose any major difficulty to the ship.

Lieutenants Haynes and Fitzhugh were summoned and asked for their views. Haynes was enthusiastic, volunteering to take his Marines ashore to take part in the assault on the depot. Phillips wondered how the Marines were coming along under the tutelage of Corporal Henderson.

“Henderson is doing a first rate job, sir. He has instilled a sense of discipline in them and they seem now to take pride in themselves. I believe a sharp action will give them additional confidence.”

“What about Henderson’s drinking? Not very long ago, he was useless as a leader.”

Haynes thought about the matter. “Henderson is useless if he is deprived of his rum for long. I have tried a strategy which seems to be working. As a non-commissioned officer, he is allowed to take his rum neat, at ¼ of a pint daily. I have his rum issued to myself, which I dole out to him in small quantities as needed. If necessary, I may add to his ration with my own supply.”

Phillips asked, “The important question here is, can we depend on this man? Will his men find themselves in a tough spot some day when he is unable to get his rum ration?” 

Haynes answered, “I have stressed to the man the importance of his work is to his men and the ship. I have told him I would take every effort to see that he has his rum, but there may be times when that is not possible.  I really believe we can depend on the man.”

Phillips decided, “Very well then. Let us give the man his stripes back again. We will have the Marine detachment drawn up on the quarterdeck in their uniforms and present Henderson with his stripes then. Perhaps you would see to that, Lieutenant Haynes.”

The post ship left the harbor on the tide accompanied by the old transport brig. Sergeant Henderson was alerted his men might be needed for action ashore, so every day for the week it took to reach their destination, Henderson had his men lined up on the quarterdeck rail, firing at boxes and kegs tossed into the ship’s wake. He made arrangements with Mister Fitzhugh to exercise his men by running them up each mast in turn.

Prior to Henderson’s rehabilitation, Phillips would have wagered the sergeant would be unable to reach the mizzen top, let alone the others, but he kept up with his men, deliberately increasing the pace as their fitness came back.

Their destination was a desolate place. Originally, just a fishing village situated on a shallow harbor, it had been fortified with a four gun battery armed with French eight pounder guns. Major Bentley had taken that battery and now it guarded his own forces. A small shipyard in the village had been torched, and the blaze had destroyed half the homes in the village before being extinguished.

Bentley’s Marines were living an uncomfortable life in this place amidst the mud and filth. Much of the available food had been consumed and it was not considered safe to send out foraging parties, since the entire populace was furious at the destruction caused by the Marines and several men had already been shot. Bentley admitted to have become almost desperate as the expected arrival of the ships was delayed.

The post ship saw much of her beef, biscuit and pork sent ashore to feed the starving Marines. In a day though, their commander reported his men capable of marching.

Major Bentley proposed marching his troops along the coast road to the targeted depot but Phillips vetoed that idea. Instead, all troops, including those Marines from Prince Rupert, would be loaded on the transport and the ships would proceed out to sea, out of sight of land. Sailing west, the transport would land her troops on an isolated stretch of beach several miles away from the target. Landing just after dark, the strike force would march along the coast road toward the depot.

Meanwhile, the post ship would be lying offshore, ready to open fire on the battery guarding the little harbor. Since the battery could be fired upon without endangering the attacking Marines, the ship’s guns would give the target their full attention until the attacking force sent up a red rocket indicating fire should cease.

It was threatening ran when the ships separated. During the night, a steady downpour began. Phillips was concerned with the Marines who would be marching in this rain. The big Brown Bess muskets the men carried were not all that dependable even in ideal conditions. Even a tiny drop of water in the pan of the musket could wet the priming, turning the deadly firearm into a crude club or spear.

As dawn approached, the ship moved closer to land. When within range of the battery, both bower anchors were deployed, with another anchor led around to the stern. There was little wind, and the anchors were holding the ship with her broadside threatening the yet invisible battery. The rain had settled down into a steady drizzle which Phillips did not believe would hinder his guns. Perhaps initially, the flintlocks would not be effective, but each gun had burning match in a linstock hung over a tub of water. Should the gun miss-fire, it would take only a second for the gunner to snatch up the linstock and press the burning end of the match into the quill protruding from the vent of the gun.

As the time for dawn approached and passed, detail slowly became visible through the steady drizzle. Long after the optimal moment, the drenched masthead lookout reported the column on Marines about ready to approach the encampment. Although the ship should have been visible to sentries ashore, there had been no indication that anything was amiss.

The ships’ guns were already loaded, with muzzles closed with protective tompions and vents shielded by a lead cover.

On command, the tompions and vent covers were removed and the flintlocks quickly fitted. Again on command, the firing lanyards were pulled, and three of the dozen guns on that broadside fired. The gunners of the remaining guns being told to disregard their flintlocks and fire manually by linstock, they inserted new powder-filled quills into the gun vents and touched the glowing embers of the linstocks to the quills.

Soon the guns were firing with proper regularity and through their night glasses, the officers were able to see the dressed stone facing of the battery’s parapet being pounded into gravel. As he watched, a ball from one of their guns struck one of the battery’s four guns, sending it spinning from its mounting.

Not a single shot had yet been fired at their tormentor and now the Marines were at the back gate. This battery had been protected by a stone wall, which might have slowed an attacker, but someone had obligingly left a gate open, and the Marines surged through.

Bentley had them form line inside the gate and fire a volley at the gunners who were now pouring from their huts. Only about half of the muskets fired but that was still amazing in this wet weather.

Bayonets were fixed and the Marines charged forward. The sight of those cold steel points coming at them made the enemy troops remember they had other matters to attend to, and most of the defenders made their escape.

A drum was sounding in the encampment, but most of the recruits had had little or no training at this point and were not inclined to go out into the rain with useless muskets to fight these hardened killers. Bentley’s men found some light field guns and pushed them into position around the encampment. There was no ammunition, but a store of French musket cartridges was found and the charges broken down to charge the little 4 pounder guns. 

The rain had stopped and the sun came out by mid-morning. Any thoughts of resistance by the prisoners had evaporated. A supply of French hard bread meant to sustain the recruits on their long march was issued to the captives, and they soon finished the food that had been planned to last them for days.

The French guns were spiked and all captured military gear was burned or otherwise destroyed. Given the last of the hard bread, the recruits were told to go their own way. Some of them might still find their way to join Napoleon’s army, but the majority, having seen the realities of military life, would doubtless try to find their way home.