Sails on the Horizon: A Novel of the Napoleonic Wars

Contents

COVER PAGE

TITLE PAGE

DEDICATION

FOREWORD

A NOTE ON MEASUREMENTS AND VALUES

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

COPYRIGHT

To Chel Avery

FOREWORD

T
HE ERA OFTEN THOUGHT OF AS THE NAPOLEONIC WARS
covers a period of roughly twenty-two years, from February
1
,
1793
, when Revolutionary France declared war on Britain, to June
18
,
1815
, the Battle of Waterloo. This was a titanic struggle—arguably the first worldwide war—between France, western Europe’s most populous country, and Great Britain, the world’s richest. Napoleon Bonaparte, whose personality and abilities came to dominate the period, does not become a prominent figure until about
1799
.

It has often been said that this was a strangely unbalanced conflict: England paramount (though not unchallenged) on the seas; France an almost unrivaled land-based military force. In order for the French army to subdue Britain it had, of course, to cross the English Channel. In order to cross the Channel, France had to at least temporarily neutralize His Majesty George the Third’s Royal Navy. To accomplish this, she would require the assistance of such other naval forces as were available from Spain, Denmark, and Holland.

Numerous nations and their colonial possessions were allied with one side or the other, not infrequently changing allegiances as a result of conquest, coercion, or choice. Of particular interest is Spain; a nominal ally of Britain at the outset of the conflict, she came under the dominion of France and switched sides in October
1796
. This is important because, on paper, the Spanish possessed a powerful navy that if allowed to combine with the remnants of once-significant French naval forces would present very serious strategic problems to London. Thus on the morning of February
14
,
1797
, a Spanish fleet of about twenty-seven sail of the line is to be found sailing from Cádiz for the purpose of joining with the French at the port of Brest.

A NOTE ON
MEASUREMENTS AND VALUES

Money

IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO DIRECTLY EQUATE THE PURCHASING
power of currency between the late eighteenth and early twenty-first centuries. It has been suggested, however, that the value of an English pound in
1790
might be multiplied by a factor of seventy or eighty to give an approximate year-
2000
equivalent. From pounds to American dollars the ratio might be
1
:
100
or
110
. English pounds were divided into shillings, pennies, and farthings: twenty shillings to a pound; twelve pennies to a shilling; four farthings to a penny. A loaf of bread cost about four pence.

Distance

Units of measurement for distance at sea were not always standardized. The author has used:

1
league =
3
nautical miles =
5
.
6
kilometers

1
nautical mile =
6
,
076
feet (
1
.
15
statute miles) =
1
.
9
kilometers

1
cable length = about
200
yards (
1
/
10
of a league) =
185
meters

1
fathom =
6
feet (
1
/
100
of a league) =
1
.
8
meters

Time

Time on British naval ships was measured in “watches” and “bells.” The day officially began at noon and was divided into seven watches, five of four hours each and two of two hours:

The ship’s bell was rung in cumulative half-hourly intervals during each watch, so that three bells in the afternoon watch is
1
:
30
P
.
M
. and four bells in the middle watch is
2
A
.
M
.

ONE

St. Valentine’s Day,
1797
Eight leagues southwest of
Cape St. Vincent, Portugal

“T
HE F-FLAGSHIP’S SIGNALING AGAIN, SIR. ‘ENGAGE THE
enemy,’ I think it says.” The adolescent midshipman stood in an oversized jacket and flapping trousers at the top of the forward ladderway, squinting into the distance along the line of British warships, each laboring more or less one cable’s length behind the other, pointed toward a gap between two large Spanish squadrons. He fairly danced with excitement.

“Thank you, Mr. Bowles. You may come down now,” said Charles Edgemont, the second lieutenant aboard His Britannic Majesty’s sixty-four-gun ship of the line
Argonaut
. At twenty-five, Edgemont’s career in the navy had already spanned thirteen years, seven as a midshipman himself and six as a commission officer. His responsibility with the ship at quarters was the upper gundeck and its twenty-eight brightly painted black twelve-pounder cannon, neatly aligned on their carriages, fourteen to a side. The smallish and outdated
Argonaut
, captained by Sir Edward Wood, had taken her position as the last in the nearly mile-long fifteen-ship English line. Charles had watched as the fleet arranged itself into formation earlier in the morning and knew the order of battle. Leading the van was
Culloden,
seventy-four guns, under Captain Thomas Troubridge, and then the
Blenheim
and the
Prince George,
both grand ninety-eights. The flagship,
Victory,
with its hundred guns and Admiral Sir John Jervis, took station seventh in the line, near the center. The fleet sailed on an easy gray sea, through intermittent gray mist, under gray skies with a chill wind blowing steadily if moderately from the west. The
Argonaut
’s crew had long since been ordered to quarters, the sails shortened, the topgallant masts struck down, and the courses brailed up in preparation for battle. Sand had been scattered on the wetted decks to improve footing and reduce the chance of fire. The guns were charged, double-shotted, primed, and run out, each of their six-man crews standing anxiously beside them.

“My G-God, there’s a lot of ’em,” Bowles reported, his voice breaking. “There must be near a score in the group awindward. T’other bunch alee ain’t but about half that large.” Billy Bowles was fourteen, a pimply youth with sallow skin and unruly hair, assigned to the gundeck. Charles had taken a liking to the boy but thought him too tender for a life in the navy. He was easily bullied by his messmates in the gun room and Charles had come across him bruised and reduced to tears more than once. “The
Culloden
’s almost up to them,” the boy bubbled on. “Can’t be more than a mile and a half afar.”

“Come down from that ladder and take your station,” Charles said. “We’ll be up to them soon enough.”

“I see a four-decker, sir, and a bunch of three-deckers! Oh, my God.”

Exasperated, Charles jumped to the ladderway and grabbed the apparently deaf midshipman by the back of his coat. “Look, the flagship’s signaling again,” the boy squealed. Charles looked down the line of ships until he saw the signal flags on
Victory
’s halyards, repeated by the frigate
Niger
standing to windward: “Admiral intends to pass through enemy line.” At the same moment he saw clouds of smoke erupt from the sides of the nearest Spanish warships, answered immediately by a broadside from
Culloden.
A moment later, the sounds of the great guns rumbled like distant thunder. “Get to your station,” he said to the boy, pulling him down the ladderway. “You can watch through a gunport.”

The roll of cannon fire slowly grew louder and more intense as the British line engaged the Spanish fleet in sequence and larger numbers from both sides became involved. It had been cold and foggy earlier in the morning and Charles had pulled on a woolen sweater under his uniform coat. Now he felt beads of clammy sweat under his arms. He began nervously drumming his fingers against his trouser leg. It came to him that, despite the span of time he had spent in the navy, he had never seen one of the great guns fired in anger. Through years of training and practice he knew well the mechanics of their operation, the bellowing roar so loud it could make the crew’s ears bleed, and the recoil as the brutes leapt inward on screaming trucks with ample force to crush anyone in their way until jerked to an abrupt halt against their breechings. He had been told by others who had survived major fleet actions off Toulon or the Saints or on the Glorious First of June of the giddy jubilation that went with delivering a deafening broadside into an opponent and the horror of receiving the full weight of a well-delivered salvo. But by accident or fate or design, the
Argonaut
had not been present at those battles and Charles had not experienced it.