‘Never thought I’d see the day when those colours flew proud in these seas,’ said Urquhart, the taciturn Scot who served as sailing master of my command, the King’s ship Royal Sceptre.
She was a fine sight indeed, the great sixty-gun man-of-war coming down at us upon the wind, exactly one month to the day before London began to burn. She heeled slightly to starboard, her sails filling with the breeze, the bow wave breaking around her cutwater as she surged through the swell. Her cannon were run out, ready for action. Her men were working the clewlines, leechlines and buntlines, gathering in the fore and main courses, a sure sign that she was intent upon a fight.
From the glorious ship’s ensign staff streamed a vast banner of pure white, interrupted only by fleurs-de-lis.
The royal ensign of France. Flying in the middle of the North Sea, at the very heart of what we captains of King Charles the Second regarded as our British seas. The France of King Louis the Fourteenth, now allied to our mortal foe, the Dutch Republic, against whom we had just fought two colossal sea-battles, one of four days and one of two. So the great ship coming towards us was an enemy, and we were closing to engage it.
‘We’ being not just the crew and guns of the Royal Sceptre, irreverently by-named ‘the King’s prick’ by her crew, but our consort too, the nimble Fourth Rate frigate Association. We two ships had been detached from the main fleet to cruise southward, toward the Straits of Dover, expecting to arrest a few Dutch merchantmen disguised as neutrals, and maybe to fight a Zeeland privateer or two. Certainly not expecting to come face to face with one of the leviathans of King Louis’ brand new navy. Five years before, France’s entire navy could have been defeated by a single Thames barge. Now this titan was coming straight for us, and we knew that somewhere behind her — hours? days? weeks? — was an entire fleet of her vast sisters, commanded by the Sun King’s bastard uncle, the Duke of Beaufort.
Our ship’s chaplain emerged from the steerage, strode up to the quarterdeck, looked over at the Frenchman, and nodded at me.
‘Now, Sir Matthew?’
‘Now, Francis, if you please.’
The Reverend Francis Gale, a stocky fellow fast gaining on his fiftieth birthday, with yet a slight trace of his native Shropshire in his voice, went up to the rail and looked out over the ship’s waist. Warrant and petty officer’s whistles brought forward a makeshift congregation of those who could be spared from their stations. My officers and I removed our hats in due reverence.
‘Thou, oh Lord, art just and powerful,’ Francis began, embarking once again on the great prayer before battle enjoined in the Book of Common Prayer. ‘O defend our cause against the face of the enemy. O God, thou art a strong tower of defence to all that flee unto thee; O save us from the violence of the enemy. O Lord of Hosts, fight for us, that we may glorify thee. O suffer us not to sink under the weight of our sins, or the violence of the enemy. O Lord, arise, help us, and deliver us for they name’s sake. Amen.’
The men in the waist echoed the amen.
When I’d first encountered him, four years before, Francis Gale had been a hopeless drunk, broken by the memory of his true love’s death during Cromwell’s assault on Drogheda. Now he was the vicar of Ravensden, the family living in the gift of the tenth Earl of that name, my brother. He was also the deeply respected chaplain of my commands whenever he could obtain leave to accompany me to sea.
‘Oh Lord, we beseech thee,’ he said, moving on to the extemporised portion of his prayers, ‘to grant us victory over the Frenchman, yonder. The true and natural enemy of all Englishmen, against whom our ancestors strived and triumphed at Crécy, Poitiers and Agincourt. The embodiment of the Popish tyranny that burned honest Protestant folk at the stake in the reign of Bloody Mary. That wooden hull, oh Lord our God, is the very embodiment of Popery and France! Popery, that consumes all before it by fire and treachery! Popery, that pretends to serve thee, yet is naught but the Whore of Babylon! France, that seeks universal monarchy over the world! France, that persecutes her own Protestant children, the godly Huguenots, more and more every day! Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, grant us the battle this day! God, grant victory to England, King Charles, the Royal Sceptre, and our noble captain, Sir Matthew Quinton! In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, amen.’
A growl, composed in equal measure of devotion and national fervour, came from the men in the waist. We officers made our own amens dutifully, if less fulsomely. As Francis turned toward me, I said, ‘A little strong today, Reverend Gale?’
He shrugged. ‘My mother never liked the French, Sir Matthew. Lost a lover in the Breton war in the old Queen’s day, or so she said. Besides, the men have got so used to fighting the Dutch, they might have forgotten they’re dealing with a different coin here. A very different coin.’
‘She’s changing course, Sir Matthew!’ cried Lieutenant Julian Delacourt. An eager but woefully inexperienced young man, only son and sole heir of an impoverished Irish nobleman, he had taken up his post in this ship just over a week before.
Indeed she was. With the wind south-westerly, the Frenchman was starting to turn north-east, giving us the advantage of the wind.
‘Running for the coast,’ I said to my officers. ‘Brave, to make for a lee shore. But he’ll have a shallower draught than we do, maybe even than the Association does, given how lightly the French build and arm their ships. A bold captain, this, my friends — running for the shoals, hoping he can outrun us as the flood sets to the northward, and thus get into the mouth of the Scheldt. But we’ll disabuse him of the notion, by God!’
Not many years before, Matthew Quinton would not have been able to make a speech like that. In those days, I could barely tell where north-east and south-west were. Yet even then I was already captain of one of the King’s men-of-war: a King’s man-of-war and a crew, by far the greatest part of which did not survive to tell of my failings.
‘Gentlemen,’ said my not much older but infinitely wiser self, ‘we will clear for action, if you please. Mister Delacourt, we will signal to the Association —’
Just then, and only for a moment, I caught a glimpse of the splendid white-and-gold carving upon the French ship’s sternpiece: a maid in armour, being wafted to heaven by angels. So this was our foe, as recorded in the latest list of King Louis’s men-of-war. The Jeanne d’Arc, new-built at Toulon. In our tongue, the Joan of Ark. Well, we English had roasted the namesake, and now we would burn the ship named after her, too.
That said, I prayed that the Jeanne d’Arc was not commanded by either of the French naval captains whom I knew well. Roger, comte d’Andelys, was a good friend, who had served me in the disguise of a sailmaker’s mate when he was in disgrace at the court of King Louis. Whereas Gaspard, Seigneur de Montnoir, a knight of Malta, was a mortal enemy, a fanatic who had once attempted to convert me to Rome when I was in his power.
I dismissed the thought. Roger was at his château in the valley of the Seine, trying to find a wife and fulminating against those rivals at court who had ensured he held no command at sea during this expedition. Montnoir, meanwhile, was supposed to have died aboard a great Danish man-of-war that I had fought some six months before, the Danes, like the French, having joined the war on the side of our Dutch enemies. But although there had been no word of Montnoir since, there was no confirmation of his death, either. And while a part of me would gladly have fought the Seigneur de Montnoir once again, another part prayed fervently that such a truly malevolent and implacable enemy was indeed already dead.
‘Fighting sails, Mister Urquhart!’ I shouted. ‘Master gunner, cartridge and shot to the guns! Half pikes between decks, if you please! Case shot to the swivel guns! Loose the tackles, open the ports, thrust out the main battery!’
Our drummers beat to quarters, our trumpeters sounded our ship’s challenge to its enemy, and the Royal Sceptre sailed into battle.
The Association engaged first. I had ordered her captain, Walton, to take a more direct easterly course, intercepting the Frenchman’s route to the Flemish shoals. This brought the frigate directly across the Jeanne d’Arc’s bows, and she fired a raking broadside at the enemy. My orders were for Walton to stay ahead of the French ship, blocking her course and forcing her to turn back towards the Royal Sceptre.
‘What in the name of Christ is he doing?’ said Delacourt.
The youth had been at sea no more than a few months, a lieutenant for just a few days, but even a babe-in-arms could see that Walton was not bearing away to the north-east, as he should have done if he was following my orders.
My telescope was pressed hard against my eye. I could see the men adjusting sail in the Association’s tops and yards. I could see Walton on his quarterdeck: a rough old Yorkshireman, a veteran of the Commonwealth’s Navy and Blake’s campaign in the Mediterranean. I could see his arm pointing toward the Jeanne d’Arc.
I knew what he was doing, and I knew why he was doing it. I lowered my telescope.
‘He’s tacking,’ I said. ‘Disobeying my orders. He wants her for himself.’
The bows of the Association were coming round into the wind.
‘He’s giving the Frenchman the wind,’ said Delacourt. ‘He’s conceding the weather gage!’
‘Intends to thwart her hawse,’ I said. ‘Grapple onto her bows, and board. Take her prize before we can even get close. But it’s a dangerous manoeuvre, Mister Delacourt — desperately dangerous, even for a man as experienced as Captain Walton.’
A rotund, bald figure came onto the quarterdeck, carrying my breastplate and my grandfather’s sword — the weapon with which Matthew Quinton, eighth Earl of Ravensden, had fought against the Spanish Armada. He looked out toward the other two ships, shook his head, and said, decisively, ‘Rebel fuckwit.’
‘Thank you, Musk,’ I said. ‘You know the opinion of the King and the Duke of York about the raising of past differences.’
‘Beg pardon, Sir Matthew. Plain, unvarnished fuckwit, then.’
He began to buckle the breastplate onto me. Phineas Musk: long-time retainer to the Quinton family, steward of our London house, nominally my captain’s clerk. Very nominally.
‘Mister Delacourt,’ I said, ‘let us make one last attempt to bring Walton to his senses and his duty. Signal in accordance with the thirteenth instruction, if you please!’
‘Aye, aye, Sir Matthew!’
A white flag was hoisted to our mizzen topmast head. If we had been in the fleet, and I an admiral, the signal would have been unambiguous: the thirteenth fighting instruction specified that the frigates in attendance on the great ships should come under the admiral’s stern for new orders. With no specific fighting instruction that fitted our particular circumstance, it was the only signal I could think of that would order Walton to break off his proposed course of action immediately. I could only hope that the captain of the Association would recognise my intent.
Instead, we looked on with horror at the spectacle unfolding before us. I do not know whether Valentine Walton saw the signal, or recognised its purpose; but I suspect that he did, and deliberately ignored it. Walton was not only displaying utter contempt for me, the jumped-up young sprig of a Cavalier who had been a sea-captain for twenty years fewer than himself, yet who commanded the larger ship and was thus his senior; he was also deliberately ignoring the fighting instructions laid down by the Lord High Admiral of England, the Duke of York. If he survived, nothing was more certain than that I would accuse him at a court-martial. He would know that, but, doubtless believed that a famous victory would see him acquitted. Above all, though, Captain Valentine Walton was displaying scant regard for the fighting qualities of his French opponent. By tacking back toward the Jeanne d’Arc, he was not only giving the Frenchman the advantage of the wind: he was exposing his own bows to a raking broadside. Perhaps he assumed the French captain was too incompetent, or too cowardly, to react.
The main and fore courses of the Jeanne d’Arc fell, and were sheeted home with immaculate speed and precision. As the ship gained momentum from the great new spread of canvas, she turned more northerly, taking her bows away from Walton’s intended attack.
‘Now we’ll see your measure, monsieur le capitaine,’ I murmured to myself.
I knew exactly what I would do in the circumstances — or at least, what I would attempt to do. I watched the sand running through the nearest glass, judged the wind, estimated the effect of the flood tide, watched the relative positions of the Association and the Jeanne d’Arc, checked the glass again —
Now.
Just as though I had given the order myself, in that exact moment the mainmast sails of the French ship swung around, into the wind. With the sails backed, all the momentum abruptly came off the ship; came off it so that it was in the ideal position to rake the Association.
The Jeanne d’Arc opened fire.
We could not see the flames from the starboard broadside, but we could see the smoke rolling toward the Association. A moment later, we heard the thunder of the blast.
I raised my telescope again. Slowly, the smoke cleared.
‘Dear God,’ I murmured. ‘Walton’s foreyard has gone. Looks like his bowsprit’s shattered, too.’
Both the standing and running rigging in the forward part of the Association was largely torn to shreds. Braces, bowlines, foreclue garnets and all the rest flew free, dancing upon the breeze.
‘Put on sail, Sir Matthew?’ asked Urquhart.
‘Of course,’ I said, angrily. ‘We must save Valentine Walton from himself — if the old fool still lives.’
The Jeanne d’Arc fired again. We were closing her larboard quarter now, and I could not see what the consequences were for the Association. But the long delay before her guns responded, and their raggedness when they did, told an eloquent story.
‘Mister Lovell!’ I cried. ‘Marines to the tops, if you please!’
An eager, yellow-coated young man doffed his hat in salute.
‘Aye, aye, Sir Matthew!’
He was impossibly young, this Ensign of the newly formed Lord Admiral’s Regiment, yet older than I had been when I, too, was an Ensign facing my first few tastes of battle. Lovell had been thrust into the command of the Marine detachment aboard the Royal Sceptre a few days earlier, during the St James’ Day fight, when his superior officer had been killed, and there had been no opportunity to appoint a new captain with more experience. But he and his Marines had proved their worth in that action, and I had faith in them now. On Lovell’s command, musketeers began to climb the shrouds to the tops. Others manned the starboard rail, taking their positions between the seamen on the swivel guns.
We had the advantage of the wind, and edged toward the Frenchman’s larboard side. If the Association could still engage, we would be able to trap the Jeanne d’Arc between two broadsides. But I was not going to repeat the mistake of depending upon Valentine Walton.
‘Mister Burdett!’ The Master Gunner of the Royal Sceptre looked up at me from his place alongside one of the starboard demi-culverins. ‘Chain and bar from the bow chasers, if you please! Round for his quarter-gallery!’
He knuckled his forehead. Burdett was a steady, quiet man, a veteran of the New Model Army’s mighty artillery train, and knew his business. In truth my order was superfluous, since Burdett had anticipated what needed to be done, and already had the necessary guns loaded with the relevant shot.
Our first shots roared out. Glass shattered in the stern windows of the Jeanne d’Arc, and splinters of timber flew from her quarter-gallery. Mizzen shrouds tore and sprang free as our chain and bar shot severed them, and holes peppered the mizzen sail itself.
My officers moved among the men, bawling encouragement as guns were hauled back, reloaded, and hauled into position to fire again. Delacourt was on the forecastle, waving his sword and showing no fear. Burdett took a final look around the guns in the waist, then went below to ready our main armament of thirty-two pound demi-cannon and eighteen pound culverins. Martin Lanherne, acting boatswain, blew his whistle and yelled fortifying words at the men on the yards. He had been with me nearly since the beginning of my time at sea, this veteran of both the King’s Army and Navy in the Civil Wars. Lanherne led the large, unruly Cornish following that I had inherited from my murdered predecessor as captain of the frigate Jupiter, four years before. For some reason I had never quite been able to fathom, the Cornishmen had attached themselves to me, following me from ship to ship ever since.
The sternmost larboard guns of the Jeanne d’Arc opened fire. The hull of the Royal Sceptre shuddered as four, perhaps five heavy iron balls struck oak.
‘Not what I’d expect from the French,’ I said to Urquhart. ‘A mistake, or bad aiming?’
‘Neither,’ said the ship’s master in his Scots brogue. ‘Look, Sir Matthew, they’re adjusting some of their barrels even lower. They’re going to fire for the hull. They’re going to fight it out English-fashion.’
I shook my head. It was an article of faith among we English captains that our enemies in this war, the Dutch and French, fired high, on the uproll, trying to cripple the rigging and dismast our ships. If they succeeded, they could board, if they felt so inclined; if not, they could simply sail away. Whereas English ships, with heavier scantlings and heavier guns, mounted much closer to the waterline, fired low, aiming to shatter the enemy’s hull and, if possible, sink it.
Our own forward guns fired again. I saw the flames, felt the deck shake beneath me, inhaled acrid gunsmoke. I saw our shot strike the hull of the French ship.
A young midshipman, Stockting, ran onto the quarterdeck, knuckled his forehead, and reported the situation below.
‘One upper-deck demi-culverin dismounted, Sir Matthew,’ he said. ‘One man wounded. The Scot, Macferran.’
‘Badly?’
‘Splinter gash in his side. Taken below to the surgeon in the orlop.’
Rage surged through my blood. An unreasonable amount of rage for the wounding of one man; a wound that he might well survive, if the surgeon did his business properly. But Macferran was part of my following-within-a-following, the curious gaggle of ill-sorted creatures that seemed to consider it their principal duty in life to protect mine. When I had first encountered him, having been ordered to the west coast of Scotland by the King on what proved to be a desperate and bloody business, Macferran had been nothing but a poacher-cum-fisherman. Now, he was an able seaman and a credit to the Navy. More than that, he was part of my strange, surrogate, seaborne family.
I drew my sword, went to the quarterdeck rail, and bellowed as loudly as I could.
‘Sceptres! Time to show the Frogs the quality of English hearts and English blood! For God, Saint George, and King Charles!’
I brought my blade sharply downwards, and the Royal Sceptre’s full broadside opened fire.
‘Give fire!’
On my command, the Sceptre fired again. The quarterdeck demi-culverins spat flame, a near-deafening blast thundered across the waters, and smoke billowed across the deck. And once again, almost as though they were responding to my own order, the guncrews of the Jeanne d’Arc responded. The two ships were so close that neither of us could miss. I felt iron balls strike our hull, low down, and felt the hull shake beneath my feet. Men screamed.
A youth of no more than eighteen ran up and knuckled his forehead in salute. I recognised him as one of the carpenter’s crew.
‘Word from Mister Richardson, Sir Matthew. A second hole below the waterline. Bad one, just forward of the mainmast step.’
I glanced at Urquhart and Francis Gale. We all knew what that meant. Even the arch-lubber Phineas Musk, standing nearby and firing off pistols at the Frenchman’s quarterdeck, frowned, for he knew, too.
‘Mister Lanherne!’ I cried. The boatswain, down in the ship’s waist ordering men to repairs of shattered rigging, looked up. ‘Look to the pumps! Every fourth quarter to man them!’
‘Aye, aye, Sir Matthew!’
Such bad damage below the waterline was sure to force us out of the engagement, and sooner rather than later, especially as the Association, out of sight on the starboard, leeward side of the Frenchman, had been entirely silent for an hour or more. If we were going to win, rather than withdrawing in dishonour, we would have to do so in short order. Very short order.
All along the starboard side, gun crews were cleaning, loading, ramming, ready to run out the guns for our next broadside. And all the while, the relentless popping and puffs of smoke from the firing of pistols and muskets. Until now, our quarterdeck had received relatively little attention; the Frenchmen in their tops seemed intent principally on exchanging fire with Lovell’s Marines in ours. Suddenly, though, a volley of lead balls struck all around us. Baines, a master’s mate, fell to the deck, clutching his thigh. Francis Gale went to him, offered him words of Godly consolation, then set about the more worldly task of bandaging the wound.
I put down my sword, drew out my two pistols from my belt, and fired them in the general direction of the enemy. From a deck that was pitching and rolling in the swell, and with the target doing exactly the same, I found it impossible to be more accurate than that. But Musk, alongside me, steadied himself, took lengthy aim, and fired. We saw the head of a Frenchman shatter, a good two hundred yards away.
‘Bravo, Musk!’ I cried.
He shrugged.
‘Bit of weight, Sir Matthew. What the uncharitable call “fat”. Makes a man steadier for the aim.’
But that was not all, and we both knew it; Musk’s youth, a dark age over which he drew an impenetrable veil, had seemingly embraced activities that bestowed all kinds of unlikely, but generally violent, skills upon him.
I went to the quarterdeck rail, and waiting for the signals from the gun captains and the Master Gunner. Wait for the downroll…
‘Give fire!’
This time, our shot seemed to have more of an effect. There was a noticeably longer interval before the Frenchman replied, and when he did, his broadside was more ragged. A part of me wanted nothing more than to close and board. It was what my grandfather would have done, but the science of naval warfare had moved on since the time of the great Elizabeth’s sea-dogs. Boarding was a deeply unpredictable business, especially against large and determined crews, as that of the Jeanne d’Arc clearly was. There were great holes in the enemy’s larboard side, and his rigging was in tatters. No doubt ours appeared in a similar state, when viewed from the Frenchman’s quarterdeck; but we were more heavily built, and could take more punishment. Above all, we had a greatly superior weight of broadside to the Frenchman, together with a more practised crew possessing substantial recent experience of battle, which was certainly not true of our opponent. In the end those considerations were bound to tell: bound to, that is, as long as we stayed afloat long enough for them to do so.
There was a sudden, colossal roar –
‘The Association!’ I cried. ‘Dear God, she’s rallied!’
Why had our companion been silent for so long? I had wondered more than once whether Walton, or whichever officer had succeeded him if he was dead, had surrendered. What had enabled her to rejoin the battle now? But this was not the moment for speculation. It was time to strike.
‘Faster, Mister Burdett!’ I called to the Master Gunner. ‘One more effort! One more broadside! Come on, men! A double ration of wine, at my expense! One more broadside for England, the King’s prick, and your doxies!’
All over the deck, exhausted gun crews redoubled their efforts. I had no doubt that the same was happening on the lower gundecks. There is nothing on earth more determined than an Englishman who scents victory.
The Jeanne d’Arc had not replied to the Association. And she did not reply now, as the broadside of the Royal Sceptre thundered for one final time. Moments later, the tattered white fleur-de-lis ensign came down. A ragged cheer broke out in the waist, and was echoed by the men below decks. Phineas Musk punched the air, while Francis Gale offered up prayers of thanksgiving and for magnanimity in victory. I fell to my knees, leaned heavily on my sword, breathed deeply, and joined in Francis’ prayer.
‘The Lord hath appeared for us; the Lord hath covered our heads, and made us to stand in the day of battle. The Lord hath appeared for us; the Lord hath overthrown our enemies, and dashed in pieces those that rose up against us. Therefore not unto us, O Lord, not unto us: but unto thy name be given the Glory.’
Perhaps it was the influence – or the ghost – of my French Catholic grandmother, or even of Shakespeare’s King Hal, but I found myself mouthing the last part of the prayer in Latin.
Non nobis, domine.