IN NOVEMBER 1781 Richard Delancey joined the Vernon storeship at Chatham Dockyard. He had been without regular employment for much of that year but was finally rescued by Captain Henry Trollope, whose acquaintance he had made in America and who was now the commander of the Kite, stationed in the Downs. A private letter from Trollope, written in reply to his, advised him that he would find a berth as fourth mate if he applied to the master of the Vernon. This recommendation proved effective and Mr Mansell welcomed him aboard. The Vernon was no man-of-war but it was soon obvious that she had been taken up for a special purpose. For a mere storeship she was to be unusually well armed and her cargo included a number of gunboats, built in frame and then dismantled and shipped for service overseas. The ship also took on board quantities of provisions and timber, leaving no one with much doubt as to her destination.
“We are bound for Gibraltar, that’s certain,” said the captain at Richard’s first dinner on board. “The French and Spanish must know by now that the place will never be starved into surrender. We have relieved it twice already and they know that we’ll do it again. That leaves them with a choice, either to storm the fortress or raise the siege. They’ll make their big assault this coming year and I reckon that our gunboats are part of the preparations for beating them off.”
“Or will the place fall before we get there?” asked the second mate, Robert Pitman.
“Never!” replied the first mate, Ian Maitland. “General Eliott is not the man to ask for quarter. Did you ever hear tell of him, sir?”
“I don’t know that I have,” said the captain. “Only that he is governor there and stands well to his guns.”
“Well, sir, he knows his trade, having studied fortification in France and Woolwich. He’s well over sixty, eats no meat but only vegetables, tastes no wine and sleeps no more than four hours a night. No sentinel of his would dare close an eyelid. He’ll hold Gibraltar if anyone can.”
“This is how one Scotsman speaks of another.”
“He’ll hold out, sir—you’ll see!”
“We’ll see, sure enough, if we come there safely, but I think we shall be under fire. It will be your task, Delancey, to exercise our men at their guns. We are glad to have someone aboard who has served in a king’s ship.”
“Aye, aye, sir, I’ll do my best. But I could wish that our destination were not so generally known. The enemy will hear that we are on the way.”
“That’s very like. But we’ll sail in convoy, mind you, under escort. We’ll not be told to run the blockade as a single ship, not with the cargo we have. We’ll sail with a fleet.”
As the weeks of preparation went by Richard sought to gather news of Gibraltar but without much success. There had been a bombardment and the town, he heard, was in ruins. There had been many casualties from scurvy. The Brilliant was there, a frigate commanded by Captain Curtis. There was no news of fighting, though, but only of preparation on either side. Work went on in the Vernon, meanwhile, every effort being made to ensure that the gunboats would be easy to reassemble. By January 1782 the loading was finished and the ship made ready for sea. She finally sailed for Spithead where she arrived in mid-February amidst a snowstorm. The captain was then told that the Vernon would not be sailing in convoy but would be escorted by the frigate Success commanded by Captain Poole. She was also to be joined by Lieutenant-Colonel Gledstanes of the 72nd Regiment and other officers together with a number of recruits. Overcrowding was inevitable but Richard welcomed a plan which would give him more men to man the guns. By the date of sailing from Spithead (11 March) he felt that the Vernon was an opponent to be reckoned with. The voyage across the Bay of Biscay was uneventful but there was every likelihood of meeting the enemy in approaching the Straits and there, sure enough, a Spanish frigate was awaiting them, the San Catalina (40 guns). The Success went to meet her with the Vernon in her wake.
So far Richard’s main responsibility was for training the gun-crews but he now found that his action station would be on the quarterdeck. Captain Mansell needed his advice. “You stay with me, Mr Delancey, and tell me what the signals mean.” No signals were made, in fact, but Richard had some idea of naval tactics and it was he who took the Vernon into action. It was a winter afternoon with a threatening sky and a failing light. Seeing the approach of two opponents, the Spaniard went about and shortened sail, allowing the Success to draw level on her port beam. Both ships opened fire and maintained the action for nearly half an hour. By then the Vernon was able to intervene and Mansell, on Richard’s advice, raked the Spaniard with one broadside and then took up a position on her starboard (and windward) beam, engaging her with both cannon and small arms. This was Richard’s first experience of a proper naval action and he was surprised to find that he was more interested than frightened. Caught between her two opponents the Spanish frigate was evidently sustaining both damage and casualties. Her fire slackened and her guns still in action were firing too high. One of these brought down the Vernon’s fore-topsail yard, cluttering the forecastle with broken timber, torn canvas and tangled cordage. Seeing his forward guns out of action, Mansell told Delancey to help the first mate clear the wreckage. Richard ran forward with an axe and had soon freed two of the guns. As he turned with some helpers towards a third he suddenly felt a blow like one from a sledge-hammer. His left arm was numb, his axe had gone and his shirt was soaked in blood. He was only half-conscious when he was carried below and then fainted, luckily being unconscious when the surgeon extracted the musket ball from his upper left arm.
When he came to, perhaps an hour later, Mansell was looking down at him.
“What has happened, sir?” he asked.
“The Spanish frigate has struck her colours. Two other frigates have been sighted and the captured ship is being burnt. We may be in battle again presently but it is dark now and we have to avoid the enemy.”
This was the end of the action so far as the Vernon was concerned, for the two frigates sighted turned out to be British, the Cerberus and Apollo escorting four transports. All reached Gibraltar in safety and Richard was among those taken ashore to hospital. Delirious at first and then semi-conscious, Richard was on the danger list for several weeks. When he was well enough to receive a visitor it was Ian Maitland who stood by his bedside, accompanied by Lieutenant-Colonel Gledstanes and his adjutant. As a background to their conversation and to the whole process of Richard’s recovery was a distant grumbling of gunfire, lessening at times but never dwindling to silence. Maitland, he realised, was asking him how he did.
“I’m feeling better but still weak,” he replied.
“I don’t wonder at that,” said Maitland. “You lost a lot of blood between the forecastle and the steerage. You are lucky to be alive.”
“I’d be luckier, sir, to have escaped the bullet.”
“That would have been a miracle,” said the colonel.
“Why?”
“Because you were not covered by fire from your own side. The fall of the fore-topsail yard had left the forecastle without a single marksman. One or two had been wounded and the rest were pinned under the wreckage. For ten minutes the opposing enemy marines—those on their forecastle—had mere target practice.”
“A painful lesson!”
“You are recovering, though.”
“So the surgeon tells me but there is still some pain and irritation. He thought I had tetanus but it seems I haven’t. The wound is infected, though, and has hardly begun to heal. But how about the Vernon? Are the gunboats put together?”
Richard heard the news on this and on later visits paid to the hospital by his messmates and he soon understood that the Vernon was nearly ready to sail on her return voyage. On 5 May Captain Mansell paid a final visit and told him that the ship must sail without him.
“I thought of listing you as a discharged invalid but the surgeon is against it. He thinks you had best remain ashore here and embark for England when recovered. So I have come to say goodbye, and also to thank you for your good services.
The capture of the San Catalina was due, in part, to you.”
“A pity she was destroyed, sir.”
“That was Captain Poole’s mistake. He feared that she would be retaken.”
“It’s very easy to be wise now, sir.”
“Very true. There would have been no prize-money for us in any case.”
The Vernon sailed on the 7th, leaving Richard still in the naval hospital, which overlooked Rosia Bay and was outside the area of the Rock which was actually under fire. When allowed to get up, Richard could see from his window the Bay of Gibraltar with Algeçiras on the far side—the centre, as he knew, of enemy preparations. In the foreground and to his right was the New Mole with the frigate Brilliant alongside. At the back of the hospital was the tented camp to which the troops had withdrawn from their damaged barracks at the exposed end of the town. His was a room for three but the other two beds were at first unoccupied, many of the wounded having been sent home to England. Soon after the Vernon had sailed, there was brought in Ensign Rogers of the 73rd, crippled by a leg wound but well able to tell Richard about the progress of the siege. The present gunfire was desultory, he explained, and those who had been through the real bombardment were tending to ignore it. That was how he himself had been wounded. The enemy preparations were all centred upon a coming assault to be made, it was said, with shipping.
“I have been watching every day with a spyglass, counting the tents and the ships. They are preparing their big effort for sometime in the summer. The present cannonade is mere routine.”
However trivial, the enemy’s fire was not wholly ineffective.
A few days later the hospital shook under the impact of a violent explosion and news came that an enemy shell had exploded the magazine of the Princess Anne’s battery. As from that time the cannonade intensified but died away again at sunset. In the meanwhile another wounded officer was brought in, this time a naval lieutenant called Moodie of the Porcupine. He had been visiting the Princess Anne’s battery and had two ribs broken in falling from the level of the platform.
“We were lucky,” he said, “that t’other magazine didn’t go. It was a damn near thing, I tell you. If the whole of Willis’s had gone, the enemy might have risked an attack on the Land Port.”
“But what about Princess Anne’s battery?” asked Rogers. “Is that out of action, sir?”
“No, the guns are still mounted. They’ll open fire as soon as they have powder again, warning the enemy not to try any tricks.”
It transpired in conversation that Moodie had been serving with the gunboats, the last of which had been launched on 4 June. Richard asked whether the gunboats were proving of use, confessing his interest as one who had helped bring them out.
“Well, you know, I suppose, what a gunboat is: an oared craft something larger than a ship’s longboat and armed with a twenty-four-pounder. Ours each have a crew of 21—eight oars a-side, three men forward and two in the sternsheets. There’s a lugsail for use on occasion, the enemy craft having a lateen instead. I have been commanding a division of them numbering five. Given an enemy ship becalmed we might rake her from a position dead aft or forward. But there are more days when we daren’t put to sea at all. We’d make a small target in action but could be sunk by a single round. We’ve done nothing much yet except to scare enemy gunboats, but—who knows?—we might take the enemy battering ships in flank. If we fail, for that matter, we know that the frigates could have done no better and might easily have fared worse.”
Richard was discharged from hospital on 17 June and reported at once to Captain Roger Curtis, the senior naval officer.
“So you joined the service in 1775?” said the captain, having heard the story. “You have been at sea for six years or more. Have you passed for lieutenant?”
“No, sir.”
“A pity. I’ll rate you then as a master’s mate, for service with the gunboats. I have a lieutenant who is wounded which leaves me with a temporary vacancy to fill.”
Richard entered the Brilliant’s junior mess with a new sensation of seniority. He was filling a lieutenant’s vacancy. He was nearer than he had ever been to commissioned rank. Had he really served the minimum six years? Did his time in the Vernon count? But if Captain Curtis thought him eligible, who was he to doubt it? One thing he could not do was to pass his examination. That required three post-captains and Gibraltar—as Richard could see for himself—had exactly two. There was the Brilliant and there was the Porcupine, two post-ships, and there was the cutter Speedwell, a lieutenant’s command. There was nothing more and nothing likely to arrive. So Richard plunged into his work with the gunboats and found himself fully occupied in rowing guard under a hot sun. On his second evening aboard the frigate he dined with Captain Curtis and came to know him a little better.
“We are unfortunate,” said the captain over his wine, “in being denied the chance of battle at sea. But we must make the most of the opportunities we have. For understanding siege warfare we are well placed indeed and I have come to boast some knowledge of the science. You will find, Mr Delancey, that I encourage my officers to visit the forward posts. We even provided a detachment to take part in the sortie of 27 November—and very well they did, Siward, eh? We have had casualties as a result but have gained in experience. I should hate to feel afterwards that we had merely wasted our time.”
Richard took the hint and made friends, when off duty, with Ensign Owen of the 29th and an old engineer officer called Hamilton. Owen, who had taken part in the sortie, was able to point out the line of attack and the parallel which the attackers had destroyed. Hamilton took him over the defensive works and lent him a book in which all the technical terms were explained. What is a demi-bastion, a battery en barbet, a gabion, a half-chandelier, a merlon, a caisson, a fascine, an epaulement, a traverse, a redoubt? All these terms he mastered and memorised. He was also shown the iron gratings which were being added to the northern batteries and on which the shot used could be heated before use. So far no red-hot shot had been fired but the artillerymen were exercised in the drill for using them, the device being reserved for the crisis of the siege. He was surprised to find that the enemy’s strength and position was known in the greatest detail, the result of deserters coming over the neutral ground at night. Owen explained, however, that all the fortress’s defensive works were as well known to the enemy from men who had deserted to them. The latest news from Spain was that the besieging army was being strengthened by the addition of twenty thousand French troops and that the threatened attack would be launched in September.
Fire from the besiegers’ batteries had been dwindling for several days and on the evening of 23 June it ceased altogether and there was a seemingly unnatural and ominous quiet. On the following day Richard was told to report to Captain Curtis. With the captain he found two army officers, the senior of them a member of the governor’s staff.
“Good morning, Mr Delancey, I want you to meet Major Palmer and Captain Millington. You will have noticed that the enemy cannon are silent and you may have wondered why. We now learn that the Duc de Crillon has taken command of the allied army, superseding Don Alvarez, and that he plans to attack this fortress from the sea. A number of ships are to be turned into floating batteries, roofed over and strengthened until they are impervious to shot and shell. We are told that work on these ships has begun at Algeçiras and we can see something of this activity from Windmill Hill. We can’t approach them in daylight, however, because of the enemy men-of-war. The governor has asked us, therefore, to send a gunboat over at night with the object of reporting on the enemy’s progress. I have agreed to do this and have decided to entrust the mission to you.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“Have you any observation to make on what men or equipment you will need?”
“I would suggest taking a smaller boat in tow for use when at close quarters with the enemy. I should like to have the assistance of two good midshipmen and I think that our cannon is needless for this purpose and should be left behind.”
“Might not the cannon help cover your retreat?” asked the major.
“We shall be more seaworthy, sir, without that weight in the bows. We are also to be on patrol, in military terms, and what you want from us is intelligence rather than noise.”
“Mr Delancey is right,” said Captain Curtis. “A military patrol sent on a similar mission would have muskets unloaded.”
“I take your point, sir,” agreed the major, and the conference ended with a plan accepted in broad outline. More detailed discussion followed the soldiers’ departure, and Richard proposed to approach Algeçiras from the westward, passing inside the island. That passage was known to be closed by a boom but Richard argued that a small boat could be hauled over it. The two midshipmen chosen were Jolliffe and Holbrook; the first being steady and reliable, the other an eager youngster with a yearning for action. Concluding his talk to them, Richard ended with these words: “Our success would be complete if we were able to take a prisoner, and a shipwright for choice, one of the men actually working on these ships. I doubt that will be possible but we’ll seize any chance that offers.”
The night chosen was 24 June, provided only that the weather was calm.
Captain Curtis stood at the entry port as Richard’s gunboat, the Revenge, was brought alongside the Brilliant. Richard reported to him, saying that all was ready. It was midnight when they pushed off, the captain saying “Good luck!” They had about five miles to row over the calm and dark sea.
The muffled oars were plied steadily and the only lights seen were the flares fired occasionally from the Grand Battery and a steady glow from the shipping at Algeçiras on their starboard bow. After pulling for an hour and a half the gunboat approached the land at a point well to the east of Fort San Garcia. Then Richard altered course and steered for the passage behind Algeçiras Island. Two things at once became apparent. First, the workmen on the floating batteries were working at night under a festoon of lanterns. Second, the approaches to the anchorage were well patrolled by guard-boats. Despite the distant noise of hammering, Richard could hear the rhythmic pulse of oars passing between the island and the coast. On his orders the gunboat waited, oars motionless, but the sound ahead of them was continuous and came from at least two boats and more probably three. There was no reason to suppose that the watch was less vigilant on the other side of the island. His original idea had now to be discarded. There was only one alternative and that was to land at the nearest point and walk along the shore until a point was reached from which the floating batteries might be visible.
In a low voice he passed the order to bring the towed boat alongside. Then he gave the following instruction to Midshipman Jolliffe: “I am going ashore here with Mr Holbrook and two seamen, Robins and Gill. Drop the grapnel and wait here in complete silence for two hours. If we have not returned by that time row back to Gibraltar. Is that understood?”
A minute later the two-oared boat was heading for the land, rowed by two picked men. Robins was a big man, immensely strong; Gill, a man who knew a few words of Spanish. All four in the party could swim. Richard brought the boat very slowly and carefully into what proved to be a rocky shore. In any sort of rough sea the boat would have been smashed to pieces but the night was calm and they reached the shore, leaving the boat tied to a rock and marking the place with a handkerchief tied to a stick.
The approach to Algeçiras had to be very cautious indeed. Gill went first, Richard and Robins a few yards behind, and young Holbrook brought up the rear. There was some sort of a path running parallel with the shore and ahead of them were the lights and noises of the harbour. As their advance brought them nearer to the town the danger obviously increased of walking into a sentry post for there could be no doubt that every path would be watched. But neither could much be seen of the ships from any point outside the town frontage. They were moored close together with their sterns towards the beach and they were surrounded by clusters of shore boats. So much was visible but the facts he could so far report were valueless. Bunched as they were, he could not even count them. So the dangerous walk continued, ending abruptly with the sound of a challenge from somewhere ahead of them. There was no shot fired but voices could be heard and footsteps. Richard and Robins left the path silently, followed by Holbrook, and then crawled forward painfully on the seaward side of the track. They could see nothing but it was evident from what they could hear that Gill had been taken prisoner. He would pretend to be a deserter—so much had been arranged beforehand—and would swear that he had come alone. This story was plausible because men usually deserted singly—Richard knew that much without understanding why—and because desertion was fairly common on either side. Without hesitation Richard led the other two towards the shore and presently found himself on a shingle beach near the ruin of what had once been a whitewashed cottage standing a hundred yards back in the direction from which he and his party had come. “We’ll leave our weapons here.” He whispered, “From this point we shall have to swim.” Their pistols, cutlasses, jackets and shoes were hidden and they took to the water without making a sound.
One fact upon which Richard had relied was the relative warmth of the water. Towards the end of a hot summer it was warmer even than the night air. The swim was not exhausting, therefore, but even so Richard planned to go no further than was strictly necessary. He merely went far enough to pass the enemy’s picket line, coming ashore when he judged that the sentinels were behind him. In less than half an hour they were opposite the nearest of the floating batteries and able to see the others. There were ten of them, stripped down to the lower masts, and each was a scene of furious activity. By lantern light a swarm of men were hammering, shaping, hoisting and jabbering. The noise was continuous, merging into a sort of murmur but broken sometimes by the higher-pitched screech of the saw. There were laden barges alongside each of the big ships and oared boats passing between them and the shore. Part of the total effort was going into the construction of a steep-pitched roof over each upper deck, intended no doubt to be bomb-proof and fireproof. As much effort again was concentrated on a sort of scaffolding which overhung the nearest ship’s port side. If only the one side were being strengthened it was evident that the ships had only the one battery and would be defenceless on the starboard side. This was the first crumb of information he had gained. It might be important—would be vital indeed to the planning of a gun-boat attack—but was quite possibly known already. To discover anything more would mean making a closer inspection.
“Looks like Noah’s Ark, sir,” said Robins.
“Fit to sink but not to sail,” said Richard’s comment.
“Our danger,” said Holbrook, “will arise when our gunners die of laughing.”
Richard guessed that time was running short and issued his orders for the next phase.
“We must have a closer look at the nearest of these monsters. We shall swim out and hope to find some floating timbers which will help our return.” He led the way down the shingle and into the sea which seemed colder now than it had been before.
As they swam towards the floating battery they ran the greater risk of being seen by the light of the lanterns. As against that, all the men in sight were intent upon their work. There were no sentinels, presumably because of the boom which protected the whole area of preparation. Activity was feverish and Richard guessed that the shipwrights must have been promised some reward for early completion of the task. There were about five hundred yards to go but Richard led the others around the ship’s port side, swimming wide of the flat boats which clustered there amidships. Some workmen were swaying up timber from these craft, using a block and tackle. Others were at work on the ship’s side adding layer after layer of timber. The total thickness would be ten feet or more. As for the sloping roof, it clearly included layers of old rope and the finished part was being covered with rawhide, identifiable by shape and smell. Forward of the flat boats was a single craft alongside, a xebec with a gig astern and no one visible on deck. Richard swam to her and scrambled on board by means of a trailing rope.
Motioning the other two to hide among the barrels which cumbered her deck, Richard climbed the rigging until he was level with the monster’s gun ports, eleven in number. In this part of the ship they were completed, each looking like the entrance to a tunnel. There was just light enough to see that the sides of the tunnels were lined with metal, apparently tin. Back on deck, Richard ascertained that the armouring of the ship was carried down almost to the waterline—would come below the waterline when she was armed and manned. Signalling the others to follow him, he hauled on the gig’s painter and slid down into her by the same trailing rope by which he had boarded the xebec. The other two followed suit and Richard cut the painter with his sheathknife. Robins took the oars and Richard pointed the way towards the ship’s bows. They passed slowly under her stern and down the other side of the ship, allowing Richard finally to see her name on the stern—Principe Carlos. Then it was time to go and Robins pulled for the shore. The boat was undoubtedly seen by several of the workmen but attracted no attention, there being other boats around. By the time it diverged from the others, heading back for the ruined cottage, it was once more in darkness. It was quietly beached and the three of them soon recovered their jackets, shoes and weapons. They walked back along the path, found their own boat, pushed off and duly reached the waiting gunboat.
“We had nearly given you up for lost,” said Jolliffe.
“We may all be lost yet,” Richard replied, looking at a faint lightening of the sky to the eastwards. “Row now for dear life!”
They were back at the New Mole before daylight.
Richard reported to Captain Curtis soon after his return. After hearing his story the captain said, “Well done. A pity about Gill. Come back at eleven.”
When Richard did so he found that Curtis had been joined once more by Major Palmer and Captain Millington.
“Now, Mr Delancey,” said the captain, “you need not describe again your actual exploit. Tell us merely what intelligence you have gained.”
“I have examined only one of the ten floating batteries, the Principe Carlos, with eleven guns on one deck, calibre unknown. She is one of the smaller ships but all appear to have the same sort of bomb-proof protection. The guns forming the ship’s port battery are to fire through solid timbers and are sheltered by a sloping roof of timber and junk or possibly cork, covered with rawhide. The gun embrasures are lined with some metal, probably tin. There are no guns mounted on the starboard side, which has no special protection apart from the roof. Work on the Principe Carlos is perhaps half completed but other ships are in an earlier stage of preparation. I am no shipwright, sir, but would guess that the floating batteries will not be ready for another eight weeks.”
“Thank you, Mr Delancey. Where would you judge these ships to be most vulnerable?”
“From the bows, sir. The forecastle seems to be unfortified.”
“Thank you. Gentlemen?” It was clearly Major Palmer’s turn and he took it.
“You have given us some facts, clearly stated. I want now to ask your opinion. How effective would you judge these ships to be?”
“They appear to be very formidable, sir, unless engaged on their starboard side. But it seems to me that their fire will be inaccurate.”
“Why?”
“Well, sir, when a gun is fired from an ordinary ship the muzzle projects from the port at the instant of firing and the smoke is blown clear by the wind. In these vessels the muzzle will be perhaps eight feet inboard and the smoke will remain in the embrasure. The gunlayers will see nothing after the first round. That is merely an opinion, sir.”
“And what gave you that idea?”
“The sheet metal lining the embrasures, sir. The Spaniards realised that the muzzle flash would burn the timber if there were no such protection. That took care of the flash but what could they do about the smoke?”
“What indeed? An interesting point … Captain Millington?”
“You mention, Mr Delancey, that the bows seem vulnerable. What about the stern?”
“That was fortified at the level of the gundeck. The rudder is unprotected but is largely under water.”
“Any other questions, gentlemen?” asked Captain Curtis. “If not, I’ll tell Mr Delancey to get some sleep.” There were no other questions and Delancey left the cabin.
“I think you’ll agree, gentlemen,” said Captain Curtis, “that Mr Delancey has provided us with some valuable information.”
“His Excellency will be very satisfied,” agreed the major. “Mr Delancey seems to be a useful man.”
“I am glad that you think so,” said Curtis. “A less resolute officer would have turned back at an early stage in that mission—and with some excuse—but Delancey persisted. I am justified, I think, in making him an acting lieutenant. If His Excellency cares to mention this young officer in his next despatch I should feel confident that the appointment would be confirmed.”
“I feel sure, sir, that His Excellency will be glad to do that. We have learnt little more than we knew or suspected about the floating batteries but we now have confirmation of the intelligence we have had from other sources. Mr Delancey’s point about the smoke is well taken, however, and will be passed to our artillerymen by way of encouragement.”
“I am glad to hear that,” said Curtis, rising to mark the end of the conference. “For us Mr Delancey brought more specific information. If our gunboats have the chance to attack they will know—or I will know, rather—how to set about it. And yet, as so often after a mission, I am forced to admit that our only certain advantage is in having tested a young man with a view to his future promotion. In this instance, gentlemen, we must agree, I think, that he has passed the test. I should not hesitate to describe him as a young officer of promise.”