Saturday Snippet: The launch of a nautical career

 

Andrew Wareham is a prolific British author who has several best-selling series to his credit in Amazon's Kindle Store.  Some are better than others, particularly when it comes to the prodigious research he obviously conducts before writing them.  For example, his four-volume "The Earl's Other Son" naval series, set in the Far East in the time of the Boxer Rebellion, displays meticulous attention to detail in naval and social terms, and is thus a pleasure to read for history buffs.  Others, for example his "The Making of a Man" series, display less intensive research, and hence contain errors that left me irritated, despite the books themselves being well written.  Oh, well.  I guess I'm a stickler for detail.  Others won't have that problem.  Overall, I enjoy his books, and I'll continue to read them and look forward to more of his work.

For today's Snippet, I've chosen the opening chapter of the opening volume, "The Friendly Sea", in his 14-volume "Duty and Destiny" series.

Set during the Napoleonic Wars, it follows its protagonist, Frederick Harris, as he progresses in the Royal Navy from midshipman to admiral.  The blurb for the first volume reads:

The second son of a Hampshire landowner, Frederick Harris has no expectations worthy of the name. He takes to the sea as a profession, rather than from love of the seafaring life. Early in the French Revolutionary War he seizes the chance to shine in a bloody sea battle. After promotion, he is sent to the Caribbean where he gains further promotion and the patronage of a senior admiral.

I've re-read the series several times, and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Here's how the first volume begins.

Waiting, twitching, belly acid, tapping the hilt of his sword, checking his pistols in their holsters for the tenth time, the darkness pressing down on the silent longboat. They must not move any further inshore until the moon rose, a September, harvest moon, full and gold, sufficient to light up the whole of the bay clearly enough for their purposes but hopefully inadequate for a shore battery to take a clean aim. Not, of course, that there were any guns emplaced, they were very nearly certain of that, though the visibility had been poor when they had opened the mouth of the bay.

They would be singing in the church back home, Harvest Festival for the womenfolk and those of the men who could be bothered with church, who weren’t working or at war or down the beerhouse. ‘Bringing in the Sheaves’, that was always sung at this time of year, the choir at its best for some reason – no time for that now, this was no time to let his thoughts drift, there was business and they were a couple of hundred miles away from home.

Eight men rested on the muffled oars, a grapnel down as anchor in the two-fathom water of the tiny cove where they lay hidden. Four more squatted uncomfortably on the bottom boards, muskets upright; a fifth squeezed in below the tiller where Frederick Harris, master’s mate, sat next to Megson, the captain’s coxswain, sent for his experience gained in the American War.

Frederick peered anxiously at the long arm sticking up almost under his nose – the muzzle-flash of a careless shot would blind him even if the ball missed. It was uncocked, the hammer flat on the frizzen, the seaman’s hand holding the pan closed, the priming safe. They had had to load on board by lantern light – foremast hands did not have the soldier’s training in small arms, could not be relied upon to load by feel and instinct in the dark.

The five musketeers would fire a single volley, if necessary, then go in with the boarding axes at their belts. The short, back-spiked blades, sometimes called tomahawks, could be used equally to slash boarding netting or to rip up an enemy and required little more than enthusiasm in their use; they were good weapons for untrained men, even if a soldier might sneer at them.

There was a skip containing a dozen Sea Service pistols at Frederick’s feet, these with flasks of fine powder and bags of twelve gauge ball for reloads; they would be used later to hold any prisoners docile but they would not be risked in the dark confusion of a night boarding. They were inaccurate over any range, best used at one or two paces, and their flintlocks were clumsy, the sears weak, so that they might fire at any knock. The soft lead ball would batter any man down, wherever it hit, not even a Malay amok would keep coming with one of those in him, but they were weapons for daylight and careful handling.

The oarsmen would use their cutlasses in the coming fight, heavy, curved, slashing blades, clumsy and unbalanced, churned out of the new manufacturies in their thousands – cheap, sharp, brittle and immediately replaceable. Valueless to the swordsman, the cutlass was ideally suited to strong-armed labourers who had cut brush and chopped firewood since boyhood, was a crude, utilitarian tool of battle, lacking elegance and romance but simply efficient. Frederick approved of the cutlass as a symbol of the new age.

A second boat was waiting behind the opposite headland, smaller, only six oars, a dozen men and a midshipman squeezed into her, ready to follow Frederick down the half mile inlet to the single stone quay next to the shingle where the fishermen drew up. A small river came down to the sea here, the road on its bank connecting central Brittany to the Channel, a half-dozen small warehouses making a tiny port. They had spotted a brig tied up, deep-laden, ready to sail and carry more than a convoy of a hundred oxcarts could drag and at least five times quicker. It was worth the effort of taking this small vessel for the disproportionate disruption it would cause the wartime economy – not to speak of the prize-money.

The prize-money was not yet vital to Frederick Harris as he came from a family with sufficient capital to give its second son a small income for life, enough that a lieutenant’s half-pay would not be a disaster, though not in itself permitting a wife and children maintained in his own order of society. But he was not a lieutenant yet. Eventually he would need money, a very small fortune, just a couple of thousands to buy a house of seven or eight bedrooms and fifty or sixty acres of farmland, but as yet promotion and glory were more important to an ambitious youth; the cash would naturally follow success, he expected. The new war against France was to be his chance, the making of a name, rank, title, fame, eventually perhaps a dynasty, but he had to find a start, possibly tonight.

He had eight years of actual sea-going experience, having first gone to sea as a ten year old – ten years on his papers due to book time when he had been falsely mustered on a distant relative’s ship – and he had passed for lieutenant a year previously, during the peace. He had not been made yet, possibly because of shrewd guesses as to his real age, more likely because of peacetime sloth and lack of opportunity. He had passed his board as a matter of course – the captains accepting his journals and evidence of at least six years as a midshipman and noting that he seemed to be of eighteen years and was old enough to shave, and unofficially taking cognisance of the fact that he was a gentleman’s son of appropriate dress, deportment and accent. There had been an oral examination of his seamanship, but it had been cursory, the questions predictable and mugged up in advance – had there been a whiff of the wrong social order the test would have been far more searching – passage through the hawsehole, while still not uncommon, was reserved for grown men of thoroughly proven merit, and they often then found difficulty securing employment, particularly in peacetime wardrooms where skills other than nautical were prized.

For Frederick, though passing his board had been easy, this war had to be his opportunity to actually obtain a commission. Chances were rare when the family’s purely naval influence was not great, and his consisted solely of a cousin of his mother’s who was a post captain of average virtue, middle-aged on the list and unlikely to hoist his flag at sea, a yellow admiral at best. Frederick’s first promotion, like that of all unfavoured warrant officers, must depend on displayed ability – valour thrust, as it were, under an admiral’s nose – and the Pallas, the sloop on which he served, was not ideal for this purpose.

Pallas mounted twelve six pound long guns and a pair of twelve pound carronades, ample for the business of commerce raiding and dealing with the average private ship of war, but she was very fast, perfect for dispatches and therefore normally forbidden to hazard herself or delay for any reason – any French she saw she must report and avoid. Now, detached to the newly refurbished Channel Fleet and on passage from Gibraltar to Portsmouth, carrying nothing and therefore free of restriction, she was taking a minor detour along the French coast, stretching her orders just a fraction, translating ‘watching’ into something a little more like actively searching.

Frederick cracked the dark lantern by the compass, peered at his watch, careful not to rattle the steel chain anchoring it to his sword belt. The hunter had been sent out to him only the previous year, bought by the uncle he was named for, and marked him out as one of those rich enough to need to know what time of day it was.

“Ten minutes till moon rise,” he whispered. “Empty your bladders now, if needs be.”

There was a stir in the boat, cautious movement and surprisingly loud splashing. Frederick nodded contentedly – he had been told years before by an early mentor that he must always remember the men’s physical comfort, that otherwise they would move more slowly and carefully, more concerned not to wet themselves than to stretch out.

Nearly half of Pallas’ crew had been detached to the two boats – the best part: none of the boys, few of the old men, only the agile, strong and biddable. The captain and lieutenant had selected carefully to avoid fools and malcontents, those who could not and those who would not obey. On a job like this there was no room for error, no need to allow random mischance the opportunity to become disaster.

Frederick briefly repeated his orders, as much to calm his own nerves as to aid the men.

“Akers and Dale to the foremast, set the topsail and then a jib, not to get involved in any fight, unless needs must. Big Smith and Joby Barney to slip or cut the moorings. Mr Megson will take the wheel and bring her out. The rest of us will silence the crew and everybody aboard – no argument, and no time to make their minds up – put up or shut up!”

Nods and mutters of assent and understanding; they knew what to do.

“Boatkeepers, hold the boats till I whistle, only then tie on to her stern. If so be there is a company of soldiers waiting for us then you are our only way out.”

There was no reason to suppose there was so much as a platoon in the whole port – it had only been a thin mist and they had seen no signs of battery, fort or barracks – but Frederick thought it as well for the people not to be overconfident, a little apprehension was said to sharpen their wits.

He gave a strangled whisper as the edge of the moon touched the hills and the darkness eased a fraction, trying to shout an order silently. “Up anchor.”

They rowed slowly, dry, carefully round the point and into the sheltered river, the low waves moderating as they came out of the wind. The huddled blocks of cottages in the valley, scattered in sections behind the godowns and net lofts that had brought them into being, grew larger, took on definition under the waxing moonlight. They had seen no guard boats tied up during the daylight hours but Frederick was unwilling to omit any precautions, kept the boat quiet, the rowing unobtrusive and a little slower – better be called an old woman than stand at an unnecessary burial. A cable out and they saw the other boat, a hazy, dark lump low on the water and outlined by startlingly bright splashes as two of the men rowed clumsy and presumably unrebuked. There were audible indrawn breaths, disapproving tooth-sucking from Frederick’s crew, an almost visible indignation.

Frederick made a mental note to speak to Midshipman Denby, an ignorant brat of low breeding and less education – he frequently dropped his aitches - a typical small ship’s midshipman dragged out of the gutter where he had, no doubt, been perfectly happy.

“Stretch out now, lads,” he said quietly, just loud enough to be heard, rather pleased that he was able to hide his excitement – no one would know this was his first time. He stood, broad-shouldered but sadly short, more squat than genteel in his own eyes, swarmed over the brig’s counter as Megson brought the boat gently alongside, stumbled as Denby’s cutter slammed into the bows. Silence other than the pattering of bare feet: no sentry on harbour watch, no alarm from the quayside, no idler or fisherman to hear anything unusual. A sudden pair of abruptly strangled howls as the two shipkeepers below awoke from crapulous sleep and fell into terminal silence. Frederick ran on tiptoes to the side – halfboots were an out of place nonsense in an action of this sort, but an officer could not go barefoot – saw that the brig had been tied fore and aft to stone bollards and that Smith and Barney were already economically coiling the cables rather than wastefully and noisily hacking through them. The fore topsail flapped and Megson called men to the braces, eased the head away from the quayside, speed picking up as the jib flatted home and Denby set the main course, belatedly in Frederick’s opinion. Tide and offshore breeze together took the brig quietly away. She was just lifting her bows to the open sea when lights and distant, faint indignation broke out on the jetty.

“Home port, I reckon, sir,” Megson commented, his station sufficiently senior that he could open conversation with a junior officer, even one as young and aware of his dignity as Frederick.

“Officers at home and crew in the knocking shop,” Frederick responded. “All ready to set sail on the tide in the forenoon, late enough to have got over the worst of their hangovers. You’re happy with the course, Megson?”

Megson was and Frederick nodded and smiled his agreement. Men like Megson had the knowledge and capacity to tread the quarterdeck, could easily be commissioned to fill a gap caused by action or illness on a long cruise. Commonsense said to offer courtesy, at least, to these petty officers and to listen to anything they had to say – had Megson suggested a course change Frederick would have ordered it immediately, only enquiring why afterwards.

Clear of the land and there was a strong sense of satisfaction aboard in all except for Mr Denby who had suffered a brief, soft-voiced but vigorous exposition of his seamanship, officer-like qualities and prospects for promotion – respectively poor, limited and non-existent – and was now much inclined to sulk. Denby had been strongly advised that he should hope for a bloody battle where he might distinguish himself without need for the intelligence and ability that he otherwise so conspicuously lacked.

“Mr Denby, two men to get a meal together, if you please. Use the Frogs’ stores if possible, they should have provisioned today if they are sailing tomorrow. Our biscuit and cheese if you must, but something hot if you can.” Frederick turned to Megson, having got his official second off the deck. “I shall go below to look over the master’s papers, get some idea of what she is. Get the bodies over the side – no ceremony, they’re only Frogs. Clean up as necessary. Put a guard over any store of spirits or wine, ignore the odd bottles the men will have picked up by now. Make or shorten sail as seems good to you, unless you need an officer. Keep the men out of mischief, don’t let them get into trouble.”

“I could put them into two watches, let them get a couple of hours sleep, turn about, sir.”

“Make it so. Inform Mr Denby of my orders, please.”

Neither man smiled: each knew the other’s opinion of Denby and both would keep him out of the way, if possible without publicly humiliating him, or at least no more than was good for him.

* * * * *

 The Anemone, an elegant name for a round-bowed, ugly, ill-cared-for coastal trader of about one hundred tons burthen and possessed of a pair of two pound swivels mounted aft and a brass blunderbuss and two horse-pistols in the little booth that was the captain’s cabin, sufficient to provide a defence against rowing-boat privateers such as might be found off the Channel Islands or the coasts of Cornwall. The bills of lading showed sixty tons of wheat, twenty tons of sheet lead and four hundred barrels of saltpetre; an additional, separate, sheet referred to a private cargo of brandy in ankers, presumably undutied. The net effect was to overload the Anemone, but that was usual enough in any coaster – while she could swim the owners would carry on loading her, and if she sank she was almost certain to be over-insured, worth more under the water than floating on it.

Frederick, who could read French after a fashion, self-taught from a novel, a dictionary and an ancient primer for the verbs, began to calculate.

“Wheat standing at eight shillings the quarter in Winchester when we sailed, so the Chronicle mother sent said. Bad weather this harvest so the price will not be falling. Let me see, thirty two shillings the hundredweight, which is thirty two pounds a ton, nineteen hundred and twenty in total; in guineas, that is … never mind, no need to worry about them! Lead, stripped from church roofs, I doubt not! Twelve pounds a ton it was priced at three years ago when father put new roofs on the three tenant farms and replaced the flashing on the House after the great storm. Two hundred and forty, if not more. Saltpetre, for gunpowder, three pounds a barrel, best Indian comes in at: French stuff will be of poor quality, everyone knows French powder is inconsistent, but apothecaries and fireworks makers will snap it up. Brandy? How much? What quality? Grape or apple? It will sell, that’s for sure. Let us say three thousand five hundred and five more for hull and fittings. I keep watch so I share with Master and Lieutenant, one third part of an eighth, not less than one hundred and fifty after fees. Very nice for a night’s work, a pity we can’t do it every night!”

A farm labourer in Frederick’s parish would earn eight to ten shillings a week, more in the harvest and spring ploughing when he was working an eighteen hour day, less through the winter months after threshing was done. With payments in kind – bread, milk, a little meat, his tied cottage – his income might, just, total fifty pounds in a good year, with a kind, paternalistic employer. Compared to this, prize money was a massive fortune, even to a man like Frederick, by naval standards well-off.

Frederick’s father was second son to Viscount Alton and had inherited his mother’s portion, an estate made up to three thousand a year; he kept his own second son in uniforms and made him an annual allowance of a hundred besides, more than doubling the pay he received since becoming master’s mate. Frederick had expectations as well, the maternal uncle after whom he was named, his godfather, his mother’s only brother, a pederast of long standing and old habit; Frederick was natural heir to the small house and estate in Sussex and twenty or so thousands in the Funds, but a young favourite might well usurp his place in the Will. Frederick had met his uncle quite frequently, though always well chaperoned by his father, and liked him much – a charming, disgusting old man - and could not wish him to an early grave or a solitary end, felt it impolite to him to live on the offchance of his thousand or so a year, had resolved to make his own way. Now, moderately competent in his trade but well aware that he was not a natural born seaman, he hoped the war would make him; the Anemone was a good start. He wondered, very privately, just how he would react to real peril; he had passed through many a storm, but weather was impartial, a danger but not an enemy, was not the same as a nasty-minded Frog deliberately pointing a great big cannon at him.

“No doubt I shall find out one day,” he reflected, on deck to greet the dawn.

“Mr Denby, two hands to the swivels, load and slowmatch lit, if you please. Lookouts aloft! Small arms on deck.”

Megson stood at a loose attention at his side, gave his opinion that they had made good between three and four knots during the night with an unvarying light southwesterly. It had clouded up a mite, visibility might be a problem, but he thought they were within a touch of their rendezvous.

The light increased slowly, rain bands in sight, a grey day, autumn in the Bay.

“On deck!” The mainmast lookout. “Sail on the starboard bow!”

“Inshore of us, Megson?”

“Could be the wind was a bit stronger out here, sir, blew her a mite further than they reckoned in the night hours.”

“Perhaps.” Frederick was unconvinced. “Set fore and main courses. See if they give this old tub anything like a turn of speed.”

Megson obeyed instantly, gave the orders, mentally shrugged, ‘the boy was twitchy, it seemed, a pity.’

“On deck! Sail is ship-rigged!” From the mainmast.

“On deck! Pallas on the larboard quarter at three miles, sir.” The foremast lookout was able to estimate the distance away of his own ship, knowing her mast height from long familiarity.

“Up you go, Megson! What is she? Point up towards Pallas, quartermaster, just a fraction, gain us a few fathoms without it noticing.”

“Aye aye, sir. Unobtrusivelike it is.”

Megson shouting a commentary as the ship grew clearer against the land in the east that had obscured vision in the dawn light, within a few minutes was able to report that she was a corvette, a national ship, of sixteen or eighteen guns.

“On deck, please, Megson.”

“Heavy crew, sir,” Megson commented for Frederick’s private ear. “I could see men at both broadsides. Got to be a hundred and fifty aboard.”

Working her own coastal waters, never more than a day or two from port, it was possible to carry a very substantial complement, drinking water no problem. No British ship ever carried hands enough to man both sides fully, could only fire both by setting the men to run between them, never a popular policy with the crews.

“Get the bulk of the men out of sight, Megson, us and four visible, that’s all you would think to see on a coaster like this.”

“The corvette’s badly sailed, sir. Too much packed on the fore and pushing her bows down – she’ll tack like a pregnant cow in a thunderstorm. We might match her against the wind even in this thing.”

“Wait for the captain, Megson. I would expect him to try to slow her, just to be certain she won’t catch us. He’s got the gage of her, and I think he’ll look to cross her bows at a distance, cut her up a little and then shepherd us away. They said at Gib that the Revolution had hit their navy hard, officers and even warrants going to the guillotine if they was so much as suspected of being unreliable, and replaced by foremast jacks and politicians who said the right things. That’s why she’s being sailed badly, I expect.”

“There needs be some reason for it, sir. It ain’t no seamanlike way of doing things, that’s for sure.”

“Wear ship, Megson.”

The slow, safe manoeuvre, typical of an undermanned merchantman, would show her anxious to clear the scene of combat while in process making so slight a progress as to leave her in a position to offer such aid to Pallas as she could.

‘Perhaps the boy ain’t so twitchy, after all,’ Megson observed to himself, glancing at the short, upright figure at the starboard rail, eyebrows a rigid bar of concentration, swarthy, tanned face, hooked nose, pursed lips showing strongly as he scowled at the Frenchman.

“Oh, Christ!”

Frederick spun round at the exclamation, saw the Pallas in sail-flapping confusion. She had missed stays, failed to make her tack with her weakened crew, was crabbing helplessly across the corvette’s bows, the range closing uncontrollably. She fired a single broadside before she fell aboard the Frenchman, rigging entangled.

“Belay! Point me at her stern, Megson!”

“Fighting sail, sir?”

“No! All speed, as quick as may be or it’s too late to bother.”

Frederick ran to the companionway. “Mr Denby! All hands!”

Every man rapidly on deck, each with a firearm and a blade, looking to him for orders and reassurance.

“All hands to board, every last one of us, lads! We’ll go over her stern, in behind the Frogs. Give ‘em a volley then go in together, shoulder to shoulder. Try to pick out her officers. Kill the buggers, every last one of ‘em, till they give up!”

It was not a great speech, he reflected. How did others do it? He suspected, darkly, that some of them produced their battle speeches in advance on the chance that they might need one. Possibly many of them were written afterwards, what they should have said – that Shakespeare, now, ‘into the breach’, and all that – not very likely, when you thought about it.

No matter! Every one of them, apart from Megson who had taken the wheel, and a man at each swivel, knelt behind the rail, ready, swearing, shivering, waiting like hunting dogs for the off. Fighting dying down on the Pallas, the French pushing towards her waist, swamping the defenders with their numbers. Anemone crashing into the corvette’s stern, the swivels firing, two sharp cracks and four pounds weight of musket balls sweeping across the deck, followed by all the long arms, including the blunderbuss with its load of buckshot, then a roaring knot of boarders, only two dozen of them but wholly unexpected.

Two French officers dead on the quarterdeck, a screaming steersman with a belly full of slugs, no voice of authority organising a counterattack. Frederick led the charge to the bows and down on to Pallas’ deck, bellowing incomprehensibly and waving his sword. He was lucky – no officer had turned his men and they hit into the back of the French boarders just as they were easing down, their fight nearly over, the urgency gone. One of Pallas’ boys who had fled into the maintop pointed its swivel, triggered the flintlock.

“Pistols, Pallas!” Frederick shouted, was rewarded by a dozen shots more or less together. “Get in there, boys!”

They attacked, cutlasses slashing wildly, boarding axes more precisely wielded at very close quarters. A lieutenant went down, a midshipman screamed piercingly, unendingly, trying to hold his spilling intestines together. The French wavered, began to defend themselves, backing away, looking for a leader.

A cutlass dropped, one man with his hands up shouting for quarter, in a moment was followed by those around him, then the whole crew. The boy screamed still, on his knees now, holding himself round the middle.

“Megson, get the corvette’s colours down! Mr Denby! Prisoners below decks into Pallas’ hold. Quickly!”

“Mr Denby’s gone, sir, copped one in the chest, stuck ‘im through and out the other bloody side, sir. That little midshipman what’s making all the noise did ‘im, sir.”

“Thank you, Barney! Get them below, man!”

Frederick grabbed men at random, told them off into parties to make sail, to hold the prisoners, secure the corvette, guard the spirits rooms, get the wounded to the surgeons, form a skeleton of a crew on each of the three vessels and hold them together under steerage way. The carpenter was roused from gazing at his best wooden maul, all splintered and bloody, quite unusable, the nearest, most natural thing to hand when he had taken his mate, the two stewards and the cook into the losing fight, was set to his proper work, apologising profusely the while.

A few minutes and it occurred to Frederick that he was alone in giving orders, that the men were all turning to him. Captain, lieutenant and master were all his seniors, should have orders for him. All were dead, the lieutenant in the waist where he had led his last few back into the French when Frederick boarded; the master by the wheel, hit early by a musket ball; Captain Johnson pistolled, nobly refusing to surrender when all seemed lost.

“Eight dead, six more who’ll go for sure, sir, eleven flat on their backs for the next few days and the surgeon’s  mate at his wits’ end, sir.”

The surgeon had been found dead in a gutter in Gibraltar, knifed when drunk, pockets rifled. He had been no great loss, not even very good as a pox-doctor, his most normal function, but he would have been handy now.

“Kick the bastard till he does something useful, Megson. Thank Christ that boy’s stopped screaming! Has he died?”

“Probably, sir. Barney just heaved him over the side, finished the job he started. Great one for tidying up after himself is Barney.”

“Quicker for the poor little sod, but I doubt we need mention it elsewhere, Megson.”

Megson nodded, he had had no intention of making a public fuss about so minor a matter.

“Who have we got on the quarterdeck, sir?”

“Mr Dixon.”

The junior of the two midshipmen, blood-spattered and close to tears, a very little boy, still a squeaker, who might one day make a very good officer, and second senior aboard.

“He’ll have to take the Frog in, Megson, no question of that. You take Anemone, as is right and fair… and my report will say so.”

Megson stood a good chance of a commission, bringing in a prize after an affair as chancy as this one, would certainly be well looked after in the service, but Dixon must have a strong man behind him, could not be left on his own.

“Perhaps Mr Carter could go with Mr Dixon, sir? He’s cut about and his left arm’s in a sling so he can’t go aloft, but he’d be useful there, sir.”

Carter was the boatswain, senior of the tradesmen aboard, skilled in seamanship and a bloody-minded, bullying tyrant, feared and hated by all.

“I thought he would have gone overboard, Megson.”

“Nobody had time, sir.”

Unpopular officers had a habit of dying in close combat, when none could tell who had fired a shot or wielded a cutlass; Carter was very lucky.

“Good suggestion, Megson. Thank you.”

* * * * *

At noon Frederick shot the sun in solitary splendour, concerned less with establishing his position – the Breton coast was still clearly visible – than with reinstating routine. The fuss and bother was over, he implied, it was time to get back to proper work, to quietly and efficiently sailing from one port to the next as sailors should. The wind was rising and the Bay showed every prospect of becoming ill-mannered and he did not fancy a lee shore with one thin crew split between three vessels; he wanted to get north of Ushant as soon as might be possible, but could not realistically demand more than topsails of the men; he was not a happy acting captain, felt this degree of responsibility to be somewhat excessive. Two hours later a blockading frigate found him, led him thankfully to the admiral to be tucked away comfortably under the wing of his great ninety gun second rate.

The admiral made much of them, found men to temporarily flesh out the prize crews, sent them into Portsmouth under escort of his own despatch brig. Their entry in tidy line astern, Pallas followed by two prizes, national flag showing proudly over tricolour, a brig leading in a ship-sloop and a merchantman, attracted a deal of attention from the assembled ships in dock and Spithead, the more so as Pallas bore the traditional signs of a vessel mourning her dead captain and her pendant at half-mast.

The war was less than six months old and successes had been few as yet, particularly in home waters; the navy made the most of Frederick’s offering.

* * * * *

The newssheets made a great puff of the affair: sailors were heroes, everyone knew that, had known it for half a century, and everyone wanted to read what they already knew in their newspapers. More importantly, the war was young and politicians, who needed instant glory, found their yearning for surrogate heroism more than satisfied by Frederick’s act of valour and the grubby little hacks of the press, then as now, were delighted to grovel to government and kiss such parts of the body politic as were presented to them.

As a True Son of Britannia Frederick achieved instant evanescent fame, his commission and appointment as second lieutenant in the newly named Athene sloop – the capture of the Pallas – bought into the service and to be rearmed with thirty two pound carronades and a pair of chase guns.

The Port-Admiral, ancient, grossly fat and generally thought to be senile, drank wine with him and the mayor took tea in his company. More importantly to him a number of post captains sought him out to shake his hand and quietly comment on his good conduct.

The Athene was to go into dock to have her ports rebuilt and lined with sheet tin against the muzzle-flash of the short barrelled carronades, as well as to have her rigging purged of a number of uniquely French nastinesses which, it stood to reason, could not be as good as the English, and even if they was had no place in the navy. Her new captain was to join in the month, the meanwhile Lieutenant Harris should go on well-earnt furlough, and, by the way, was he going to my Lord Alton’s seat?

“No, sir, to my father’s estate at Boorley Green in Hampshire.”

The answer did his prospects no harm at all.

That's how the first book in the series starts.  It runs along at a cracking pace.  Recommended.

Peter