‘Make for the furthest line of ships!’ I ordered.
‘Aye, aye, Sir Matthew!’
We were passing between row after row of hulls, sometimes four or five deep, some lashed together, most at individual moorings. But I knew two things. First, there was no point starting with the nearest ships; the wind was south-westerly, so we needed to start setting fires at the far end of the fleet, then work back, so that the breeze would do much of our work for us. Second, the ships furthest away for us were the ones most likely to try and make a run for the open sea; and so it proved. We emerged from between two rows of flyboats to see Holmes signalling from the Fanfan, while beyond, what looked to be a Guineaman, three privateers, and five more flyboats, were putting on sail and starting to move away toward the south-east, into a narrow channel between the Vlie island itself and some small inlets that lay between it and the mainland.
I looked across toward the Fanfan. Holmes was pacing the deck, jumping up onto the wale, shaking his fist and screaming inaudible obscenities at the fleeing Dutchmen. But he was a good enough seaman to know the reality of the situation. Finally, he went back to the stern of the yacht, waved across to the water to me, raised his hands as if to say ‘it matters not a jot’, and pointed back towards the hulls behind us. Nine had got away, but that still left over one hundred and fifty ships to burn. And in one sense, it was good that some of the Dutch had escaped. They would carry the news to Amsterdam of what the English had done at the Vlie, and God willing, that news would bring the consequences we all hoped for. So we left the fleeing Dutchmen to their own devices, put over the helms of our boats, and made for the ranks of ships in the Vlie anchorage.
‘Every ship to be fired!’ I ordered, as I climbed aboard a Baltic flyboat laden with grain from Poland.
In truth, my order was nearly as redundant as the fireballs. Every seaman knew how to fire a ship, and how to extinguish such a fire: countless vessels were lost to accidental blazes, so fire was one of the most feared of all the many hazards of the sea-business. Thus it was simply a case of men doing what they were always specifically ordered not to do, such as igniting straw below decks, laying a powder fuse to a tar barrel, and so forth.
As we pushed off from the flyboat and the oarsmen took up their strokes, I saw the first flames spit from the upper deck of the ship. It is remarkable how quickly a hull burns; soon, the whole vessel was ablaze from stem to stern. The breeze carried the flames into the rigging and upperworks of the ship secured alongside it, and in short order, that, too, was a roaring conflagration. So onward, through the entire fleet. It was slow work, but with no resistance at all, it was easy work, too. My men moved from hull to hull, methodically setting fires wherever they would cause the most damage. I looked across to the other groups of ships in my view. On all of them, Englishmen were engaged in the same work, firing their fuses and fireballs, getting back into their longboats, and rowing to the next batch of vessels. We cut the cables of many of the Dutch ships – in some cases, their own crews had already done so – so that burning hulls drifted against others, firing them in turn. Some ships burned more readily and fulsomely than others, depending on the nature of the cargoes they carried, but burn they all did, sooner or later. By the early evening, the entire Vlie anchorage was a carpet of flame, the smells of burning wood and scores of cargoes, from spices to pinewood to saltfish, putting me in mind of a vast kitchen. Guinea ships, Turkey Company ships from Smyrna and Scanderoon, Russia traders from Archangel, Balticmen from Danzig and Riga, flyboats laden with French wines from La Rochelle or Bordeaux, timber cargoes from Norway – all of them blazed away, sending a vast pall of smoke into the air. Even on the quarterdeck of the Black Prince, at anchor in Schelling Road some considerable distance from seat of the fire, the heat warmed the faces of Kit Farrell and I as we watched the great merchant fleet perish. Against the setting sun, it looked like Hell itself.
‘A fine day’s work, Sir Matthew,’ said Kit.
‘Indeed, Captain Farrell. The Dutch hit in the only place where they truly feel pain – their pockets.’
‘And would you say that in the hearing of your wife?’
I laughed. Until only very recently, Kit would never have dared to make such a quip at my expense. But in many respects, we were equals now, and he, who knew Cornelia very well, was finally starting to come to terms with the fact.
‘’Sakes no, Kit. Even if she were on the point of giving birth, she would beat me black and blue for insulting her countrymen so.’
Little did I realise how prescient both Kit’s question and my mocking response to it would prove to be.
At length, with the flames still raging all across the Wadden Sea, we went below for a supper of salt beef and execrable claret. Kit then climbed back on deck to take the middle watch, while I retired to my pallet in his cabin. It would be an early start on the next morning, when we were to execute the second part of the attack.
I was aware of rain during the night, and unexpected motions of the Black Prince’s hull. I went back on deck just after dawn, to find Kit still at the quarterdeck rail and a vast pall of smoke hanging over the blackened and, in some cases, still burning hulls in the Vlie anchorage.
‘Joy of the morning, Sir Matthew,’ he said, ‘although a night of precious little joy, I fear.’
‘There was a squall?’
He nodded. ‘Sir Robert has sent fresh orders. The attack on Vlieland is cancelled – the rain ruined much of the arms and powder in the boats and ketches. So the entire attack is to be on Schelling alone.’
I frowned, but said nothing. The two small towns on Vlieland had grown rich from the countless ships that used their anchorage, and had warehouses and substantial merchants’ houses galore. According to van Heemskerck, the VOC, the Dutch East India Company itself, stored enormous quantities of goods there, and the company’s wealth was a byword throughout Europe. These were fit and proper targets for attack; but as Holmes well knew, that meant they were likely to be better defended, and he could not risk a humiliating retreat if we ran out of ammunition. But Schelling Island was a very different matter.
I still had those same doubts in my mind when I stood on the beach of that low, featureless island some three hours later. All around me, our eleven companies of soldiers and sailors were disembarking from their ketches and longboats, roughly two-thirds armed with muskets, one third with pikes.
‘Well, Matt,’ said Holmes, striding toward me from his own longboat, ‘a fine day after all, eh, for invading Hogen-Mogen-land?’
‘Fine enough, Sir Robert. But what is there to attack here, exactly?’
‘What is there to attack?’ He looked over his shoulder toward the squat church tower to the west, and the huddle of houses around it. ‘Yonder is a Dutch town, on a Dutch island, with Dutch people in it. What better for Englishmen to attack?’
I bowed my head. ‘As you say, Sir Robert.’
And with that, he nodded toward the other company commanders, who were forming into a little group further up the beach. We went over and joined them. Philip Howard eyed me suspiciously, no doubt resenting the fact that I, and not he, was second-in-command of this expedition, but I found warm smiles and greetings elsewhere in the group, who were mainly fellow sea-captains not then holding actual commands, like myself: the likes of Holmes’ brother John, Tom Guy, and Dick Haddock, who would live so very long that he served every English ruler from Cromwell to the first George. Kit had not said a word when we parted on the Black Prince, but I knew he was frustrated, perhaps even discontented, at missing the attack. Yet we had to guard against the sudden arrival of a Dutch squadron, which meant that the frigates needed their captains, who needed to be ready for battle if necessary.
‘So, gentlemen,’ said Holmes, ‘one company to remain here to secure our boats. Captain Hellyn, if you will.’
Hellyn, an old soldier, was crestfallen: there was no honour in acting as a mere sentry on a beach.
‘Five companies with me, including my own. Then Jack –’ he nodded at his brother, who smiled – ‘Bellasyse, Hammond, Haddock. Five companies with Sir Matthew – your own, Sir Philip’s, Captains Guy, Willshaw and Butler. My own force to surround the town in case any defenders attempt to surprise us. Sir Matthew, your force to go into the town and burn it. Any booty worth carrying is to be brought off, else it is to be destroyed. The same with cattle. No violence to be done to women, children or the lower sort of people, unless they resist, as stated in my orders from the Prince and the Duke. If we seize any of the better sort of inhabitants, they are to be taken aboard the ships, to be disposed of as we see fit. But, gentlemen, time forces our hands in all of this. I intend us to sail at or just after high water, praying the wind is still favourable. With the channel being so narrow, we dare not risk being trapped here by a contrary gale – the Dutch fleet down at Texel will know we are here by now, and I have no doubt they’ll be sending a force against us. But, God willing, they won’t get out of their sea-gate before we’ve done our business here. Questions?’ I had many, but this was not the time to ask them, even if Holmes’ tone had been more receptive to a response. ‘Good. Well then, gentlemen, to the heads of your companies! God for England, Saint George and King Charles!’
‘God save the King!’ cried Howard in reply, and the rest of us echoed him.
‘Oh, Matt,’ said Holmes, casually, ‘one thing I forgot to say. You can take our Dutch friend van Heemskerck with you. He knows the town and might be of use to you.’
‘Does he know it as well as he knew the channels, Sir Robert?’
He looked at me in feigned astonishment.
‘God in Heaven, Matt Quinton, I never thought I’d see the day you turned cynic!’ He leaned toward me, and spoke more quietly. ‘But a word of advice, Matt. Set a few men to be with him at all times. We can’t have the King’s prized defector being captured and hanged as a traitor. And we can’t have him deciding it might be opportune to change his side back again, can we?’
Holmes strode away to oversee the formation of his little army. I shook my head, and stood stock still. I would have to both shepherd the Dutch turncoat and contend with Philip Howard, an ally of Albemarle, my sworn enemy. But worse, much worse, I was to be the commander responsible for burning the town. I thought of Veere in Zeeland, Cornelia’s birthplace, where we had lived together contentedly before the Restoration. It was much bigger than the village before me, but containing no doubt the same kinds of people. Honest, God-fearing folk, loving parents, children, husbands and wives, all striving to make the best of their lives.
Lives that I was about to ruin.
But those were the orders from Sir Robert Holmes, who in turn took his orders from Prince Rupert and the Duke of Albemarle, who in turn took their orders from Charles the Second, by the Grace of God King of England, Scotland and Ireland, for whose throne my father had died, my brother had bled, and I had fought.
I turned, and began to walk across the beach toward the head of my own troops.