Dawn on a fine early August morning, a marked contrast to the previous day. The sun began to rise in the east, dead ahead, revealing the two long, low islands barely a couple of miles away. The islands of Vlieland and Terschelling.
Now was the hour. We were about to invade Holland.
I stood on the quarterdeck of the Black Prince, a fine-lined Fourth Rate frigate mounting some forty-six cannon, the ensign of the Red Squadron spilling out over her stern. Her captain, a stocky fellow of my own age, wearing a plain russet coat, stood at my side. How matters had changed for both of us since that fateful day, five years earlier, when the young gentleman captain of His Majesty’s ship the Happy Restoration was saved from drowning during her shipwreck on the Irish coast by an equally youthful master’s mate from Wapping named Kit Farrell. A shipwreck that had been caused entirely by Captain Matthew Quinton’s utter ignorance of the ways of the sea and ships. We had come to an agreement that day: Kit would teach me those ways, and in turn I would teach him to read and write. Since then, he had served under me in various ships and posts, latterly as my lieutenant, until his bravery in the Four Days’ battle eight weeks earlier led the joint admirals to promote him to this, his first command. Captain Christopher Farrell still looked about his ship with a sense of awe, as though he could not quite believe or comprehend what had happened to him. And, if truth be told, there was still a part of Captain Sir Matthew Quinton that could not quite believe or comprehend what had happened to the two of us in the space of a mere five years.
‘Sir Robert’s hoisting a signal!’ shouted Kit’s boatswain.
‘I see it, Mister Kendall,’ cried Kit. ‘The red at the mizzen – the command to fall into the admiral’s wake. We’re forming line!’
Holmes had shifted his flag to the Tyger, a frigate of similar force to the Black Prince, in which he was leading the rest of us towards the channel between the two Dutch islands. This followed the previous day’s debacle, when, as Holmes later told me, Lauris van Heemskerck had listened to each successive, troublingly shallow, sounding by the Tyger’s leadsman, shaken his head, murmured that the sandbanks must have shifted since he was last in those waters in April, and avoided Sir Robert’s furious gaze for the rest of the day. Fortunately, a small Danish craft, approaching the sea-gate and blissfully unaware of the presence of our squadron, had blundered directly into the path of the Garland, and her skipper proved eager to win his release in return for piloting us into the anchorage.
Kit Farrell took up a voice trumpet and began shouting orders to his crew. Many more orders than I would have issued myself. I inclined to the view that if a captain had faith in his warrant officers, they could be left to issue the great majority of commands; and perhaps there was still a part of me that secretly sympathised with the views of my friend and fellow gentleman commander, Beaudesert Harris. Beau was by no means alone in his belief that captains of good birth should not sully themselves with such artisan tasks as mastering the name and purpose of every rope and timber on the ship, with writing up their own journals, or with checking the gunner’s and carpenter’s stores. Instead, he contended, they should adhere only to the traditional role of the warrior-knight, namely that of leading by example in battle. Or, as we both put it when we were in our cups, standing fearlessly upon an exposed deck, waving a sword, shouting very loudly, and being shot at.
‘A fair wind for it, Sir Matthew,’ said Kit, who knew every rope of his ship, every timber, and everything else to do with it. ‘South-westerly, not strong enough to trap us behind the shoals when we want to come out again.’
‘Let us hope it remains so, K – Captain Farrell,’ I said.
One had to maintain formalities in the hearing of his own crew, especially as I had seen the looks in the eyes of some of his men: the jealousy and resentment of those who knew full well that their captain was drawn from the same social rank as they were, but had risen much faster, and at a much younger age, than any of them. We had discussed it at dinner in his great cabin, the previous afternoon, shortly after the shattered Royal Sceptre had left the fleet, taking with her Francis Gale and a bitterly complaining Phineas Musk, who’d seemed convinced that I would be killed as soon as I was out of his sight.
‘You have the advantage of birth, Sir Matthew,’ Kit had said. ‘Even in our time on the Happy Restoration, the men respected you as the brother of an Earl, a man of birth to whom they would naturally defer, despite –’
He blushed, and took a sip of wine instead of completing his sentence. He still lifted his glass cautiously, as though he were not entirely sure of this unfamiliar drink and the refined manner in which commissioned sea-captains of the King were expected to drink it.
‘Despite the fact that I knew less of the sea than the rats who plagued our orlop on that unhappy ship? You have the right of it, Captain Farrell.’
He smiled.
‘And now, they respect you as a brave and famous commander, and a knight of the realm. Sir Matthew Quinton, who has the favour of Prince Rupert and whose brother is a friend of the King. Whereas as far as they’re concerned, I’m just plain Kit Farrell, a mere tarpaulin from Wapping, an alehouse landlady’s brat who just happens to have had more luck than they have.’
‘Nonsense. Oh, nonsense, man!’ Kit rarely stooped to self-pity, but when he did, it irritated me beyond measure. ‘The heroism you displayed in the late battle is a byword in the fleet, and seamen always respect a captain who knows his business. Besides, Kit, you’re an example to them. They’ll all be out there in their messes, or at their stations, thinking to themselves that if you can do it, then so can they.’
‘If they don’t mutiny and fillet me first, that is.’
‘I’d worry about the Dutch rather more than about your own men, Captain Farrell.’
He frowned, as though still not entirely convinced, but then looked back at me, and his mind seemed to be more at ease.
‘Amen to that, Sir Matthew, amen to that. Now tell me, in confidence – is this good wine or no? With ale, one sip is enough to tell me its origin and its quality. But wine… I fear I will never become a judge of it.’
I had not the heart to tell him it was a foul abomination, a glassful of Satan’s piss masquerading as claret. For all I knew, his mother had supplied it, and the notion that she might have fleeced her own son would only have discontented him on the eve of battle.
The bad judge of wine was, however, an excellent judge of the movement of ships through water, as was clear that next morning, as our squadron moved steadily through the Dutch shoals.
‘There goes the first marker buoy from the Tyger,’ said Kit. ‘So far, the Dane is proving his worth.’
‘Lucky for van Heemskerck that he is,’ I said. ‘But our Dutch friend will still have much explaining to do if this expedition miscarries after all.’
The captured ship-master was piloting the flagship unerringly through the narrow deep water channel between the low, featureless islands, leaving buoys on either side to mark it for the return voyage. Our excellent Blaeu charts showed the buoys that should have been there, but the Dutch had cut them in haste in an attempt to deter our attack; a vain hope, with Sir Robert Holmes in command. The rest of the squadron followed the Tyger: first the Dragon, then ourselves, the Fifth Rates Sweepstakes, Pembroke and Garland, two more Fourths in the Hampshire and Advice, with the ketches and fireships interspersed between us, the longboats being towed, five or six behind each frigate. Once we were through, and into the open water behind the islands, the Hampshire and Advice came to an anchor, to guard the buoys in case the Dutch attempted to take them up in order to hinder our escape.
In that moment, however, there seemed very little prospect of the Dutch doing anything so aggressive. Indeed, there was no sight nor sound of the Dutch at all. We could now make out windmills and church towers on the two islands, Vlieland to our west and Terschelling to our east, but there were no signs of alarm: no warning beacons being lit, for instance, nor church bells rung.
‘Perhaps the butterboxes are sleeping late,’ said Kit.
‘Or perhaps they think we’re one of their own squadrons,’ I replied. ‘After all, who would imagine the English daring to sail into their own private lake like this?’
But sailing into it we were, moving out into the calm waters of the Wadden Sea. And a sight to behold lay before our eyes as the Tyger and Dragon, ahead of us, turned slightly to the north-east, opening up the prospect dead ahead.
Kit and I peered through our telescopes, counting masts.
‘One hundred and fifty at least,’ I said.
‘One hundred and seventy, I’d say, Sir Matthew.’
‘I defer to your opinion, Captain Farrell – your eyesight was ever superior to mine. But such a number, moored so tightly together… not even a blind man could fail to hit such a target.’
And our admiral was no blind man, that was certain. Robin Holmes had a name as the most violent and aggressive sea-captain in England, if not the whole of Europe. Many blamed him for starting the entire war, due to his ferocious depredations of Dutch colonies on the coast of Africa, and Holmes did nothing to disabuse them. Indeed, he seemed inordinately proud of the label. So putting Sir Robert Holmes into the Wadden Sea on that morning, with such a vast fleet of rich and nearly defenceless hulls before him, was very much a case of putting a hungry fox into a crowded chicken coop.
The hungry fox was, indeed, in the mood for a hearty Dutch dinner. I joined him on the tiny quarterdeck of Prince Rupert’s yacht, the Fanfan, having been rowed across from the Black Prince. In truth, it was not a quarterdeck at all, simply the space at the stern of the one upper deck; but naval tradition decreed that a man-of-war should have a quarterdeck, and that was doubly the case when she embarked such an eminence as the Rear-Admiral of the Red, whose banner of distinction flew from the masthead. Regardless of such niceties, though, a splendid and very busy sight was going on all around us. The squadron had lain to just inside the channel between the two islands, and men were disembarking from the frigates into longboats and ketches. Holmes had transferred his flag to this nimble little craft, specially loaned to him by the Prince, so that he could take part in close action in shallow waters. He was in high spirits, insisting that his company commanders join him in a toast to the success of the expedition.
‘Well, Sir Matthew,’ he said, ‘how do you fancy a little fiery sport today?’
I smiled. ‘I am at your command, Sir Robert.’
The other commanders vigorously nodded their agreement.
‘Excellent. Then let’s to it! Gentlemen, to the boats! Let’s light a fire here that’ll singe Meinheer de Witt’s warty republican arse!’
Barely a turn of the glass later, the Fanfan, five fireships, and a dozen longboats were moving relentlessly across the calm waters of the Wadden Sea, directly for the great mass of merchant ships lying dead ahead of us. The flooding tide was with us, carrying us into the serried ranks while making it very difficult for any of the merchantmen to attempt to escape the anchorage. The men on the ships had evidently realised this, together with the imminence and scale of the threat they now faced. Crews were taking to their boats, rowing for the isle of Vlie or the mainland as though their lives depended upon it – which, of course, they did. And ashore, scores of men were moving hither and thither on the Vlie island, many carrying spades, which they were using to dig what would evidently become makeshift ditches and ramparts. I could even see some small cannon, presumably taken from some of the merchantmen, being moved into position. Much good it will do them, I thought.
I stood in the bow of my boat, sword drawn, as did all my fellow company commanders. I looked behind me, toward my men. This was a small but able crew, composed overwhelmingly of sailors from the Tyger. The business we were now about was a seaman’s affair; the soldiers would play their parts later. In the bottom of the boat, our principal weapons lay upon a canvas tarpaulin, waiting to be brought into action. We carried several dozen grenadoes, and an equal number of the rather cruder fireballs, simply balls of cotton cloth enclosing a mixture of gunpowder, saltpetre, sulphur and resin. The men’s eyes were eager, full of anticipation. After the summer’s two hard fought and bloody battles, this would be a very different business.
‘Sir Matthew!’ cried the man on the tiller, pointing behind me, back toward the ranks of merchant ships.
Finally, it seemed, the Dutch were rallying to mount some sort of a defence. Two small frigates, of perhaps twenty-six or twenty-eight guns apiece, were moving out from behind the mass of hulls, bearing towards our little fleet.
‘Steady as she goes!’ I commanded.
The men behind me began to shout defiance at the oncoming frigates. They knew, as I did, that they posed little threat to us. True, if they somehow got in among our longboats, they would smash us to pieces in short order. But they would never do that: if needs be, we could simply turn to the west and outrun them by rowing for the shallow waters of the Vlie island, where they could not follow us, or retire to the north-east and the protection of our own, vastly more powerful, frigates. Above all, though, the Dutchmen had to contend with what lay between us and them. Our fireships.
The men in my boat cheered as the Richard and Bryar adjusted sail, put over their helms, and made directly for the two frigates. In that confined and crowded anchorage, there was almost no room for the Dutch ships to manoeuvre. In effect, they had committed themselves to what they knew to be a suicidal charge, and now their bluff was well and truly called.
The Richard struck home first, closing the nearer of the Dutchmen. A few desultory shots rang out from muskets in the frigate’s forecastle, but the Richard’s crew knew what they were about. They grappled onto the bowsprit and the beakhead shrouds, pulling the two ships tightly together. The Dutch crew, knowing the game was up, abandoned ship by their boats. We cheered as we watched our men row away from the Richard, from which the first wisps of smoke were already rising. Within minutes, the fireship was ablaze, the flames licking over onto the bows of the Dutch frigate. As the fire spread onto the main deck, gunpowder cartridges began to explode, and loaded cannon fired themselves into empty air. The flames fired the sails, pieces of burning canvas breaking away to float upon the breeze before landing in the sea. Fire climbed the masts and licked out along the yards, turning them into giant blazing crucifixes. And still we cheered.
At first, the Bryar’s attack seemed to miscarry disastrously. The bow suddenly rose before falling again, and even from a fair distance across the water, I could plainly hear the loud shuddering that unmistakeably betrayed a ship running aground. But the crew of the Dutch frigate, having witnessed the fate that had befallen their consort, were already in their boats, rowing hard for safety. The Bryar’s captain needed no orders from the likes of Holmes or myself: his duty was clear. The fireship’s longboat cast off, taking the great majority of the Bryar’s crew in her, steering a course directly for the Dutchman.
Nothing could have been simpler. They secured alongside the deserted Dutch frigate and went about their business briskly. From the prow of my boat, I could see clearly the fuses being laid to barrels of pitch and tar, and knew that other men would be doing the same with any flammable material they discovered between decks. In what seemed no more than a matter of moments, the second Dutch ship was ablaze, and the Bryar’s men were rowing back toward their own ship so that they could tow her off the sandbank.
‘Well, my lads,’ I cried to my men, ‘the example’s been given to us! What say you we light a few fires of our own, to warm the hearts of every man and woman in England?’
‘Aye, Sir Matthew!’ came the reply. ‘Aye, by God!’
With that, we entered the serried ranks of the Dutch merchant fleet.