An Eye of the Fleet

Chapter Thirteen The Action with La Creole

His Britannic Majesty's 36-gun frigate Cyclops was cleared for action, leaning to a stiff south westerly breeze, close hauled on the port tack. To windward the chase was desperately trying to escape. As yet no colours had broken out at her peak but the opinion current aboard Cyclops was that she was American.

She had the appearance of an Indiaman but cynics reminded their fellows that Captain Pearson had been compelled to surrender to Paul Jones in the Bonhomme Richard. She had been an Indiaman.

On his quarterdeck Hope silently prayed she would be a merchant ship. If so she would prove an easy prey. If she operated under letters of marque she might prove a tougher nut to crack. What was more important was that Hope wished his arrival on the coast to be secret. Whatever the chase turned out to be Hope wanted to secure her.

Devaux urged him to hoist French colours but Hope demurred. He had little liking for such deceptions and ordered British colours hoisted. After a while the chase brailed up his courses and broke out the American flag.

'Ah there! He's going to accept battle. To your posts, gentlemen, this will be warm work. Do you likewise with the courses Mr Blackmore and take the topgallants off her…'

Shortened down for the ponderous manoeuvres of formal battle, Cyclops closed with her enemy. In the fore-top Drinkwater peered under the leech of the fore-topsail.

There was something odd about the ship they were approaching.

'Tregembo… clap your eyes on yon ship… do you notice anything peculiar…?'

The Cornishman left his swivel and peered to where the enemy vessel lay to, seemingly awaiting the British frigate.

'No zur… but wait there's siller at her rail no… it's gone now…' He straightened up scratching his head.

'Did you see flashes of silver?'

'Aye, zur, leastways I thought I did…'

Drinkwater looked aft. Cranston in the main-top waved at him and he waved back suddenly making his mind up. He swung himself over into the futtock shrouds.

On the quarterdeck he bumped into Morris who was now signal midshipman.

'What the hell are you doing aft?' hissed Morris, 'Get forrard to your station pig!' Drinkwater dodged round him and hovered at Hope's coat tails.

'Sir! Sir!'

'What the devil?' Hope and Devaux turned at the intrusion of their vigilant watch on the closing American.

'Sir, I believe I saw the sun on bayonets from the fore-top…'

'Bayonets, by God…' Wheeler too whirled at the military word. Then he turned again and clapped his glass to his eye. Briefly visible the sun caught the flash of steel again.

'Aye bayonets by God, sir! He's a company or two there sir, damned if he hasn't…' exclaimed the marine officer.

'You'll be damned if he has, sir,' retorted Hope, 'so he wants to grapple and board with infantry… Mr Devaux, lay her off a little and aim for his top hamper.'

'Aye, aye, sir.' Devaux went off roaring orders.

'Thank you, Mr Drinkwater, you may return to your station.'

'Aye, aye, sir…'

'Lickspittle!' hissed Morris as he passed.

Hope's assessment had been correct. The enemy ship had indeed been a French Indiaman but was then operating under a commission signed by George Washington himself. Despite her American authority she was commanded by a Frenchman of great daring who had been cruising under the rebel flag since the Americans first appealed for help from the adventurous youth of Europe.

This officer had on board a part battalion of American militia who, though recently driven out of Georgia by their Loyalist countrymen, had recovered their bravado after receiving a stirring harangue from their ally and were now eager to fire their muskets again.

Although Hope had correctly assessed his opponent's tactics he was too late to avoid them. As the two vessels opened fire on one another the enemy freed off a little and bore down towards the British ship. As they closed her name was visible across her transom: La Creole.

La Creole's main yard fouled Cyclops's cro'jack yard and the two vessels came together with a jarring crash. The pounding match already started continued unabated, despite the fact that the gun muzzles almost touched. Already the adjacent bulwarks of the two ships were reduced to a shambles and the deadly splinters were lancing through the smoke laden air. Cyclops's shot had destroyed the enemy's two boats on the gratings and the stray balls and resultant splinters were unnerving the militia. The French commander, knowing delay was fatal, leapt on to the rail and waved the Americans on. His own polyglot crew followed him.

The tide of boarders swirled downwards over the upper deck gunners and Wheeler brought his after guard of marines forward in a line.

'Forward! Present! Fire!' They let off a volley and reloaded with the ease of practice, spitting the balls into their muzzles and banging the musket stocks on the deck to avoid the time consuming ritual of the ramrod.

Back in the foretop Drinkwater discharged the swivel into the throng as it poured aboard. He reloaded then turned to find Tregembo wrestling with a sallow desperado who had appeared from nowhere. Looking up Drinkwater saw more men running like monkeys along the enemy's yards and into Cyclops's rigging. In the main top Cranston was coolly picking off any who attempted to lash the yards of the two ships, but men were coming aboard via the topsail yards and sliding down the forestays in a kind of hellish circus act.

On the maindeck the gun crews continued to serve their pieces. Occasionally the rammer working at the exposed muzzle would receive a jab from an enemy boarding pike until Devaux ordered the ports closed when reloading. It slowed the rate of fire but made the men attentive and reduced the risk of premature explosions through skimpy sponging. Small arms fire crackled above their heads and a small face appeared at Lieutenant Keene's elbow. It was little White.

'Sir! Sir! Please allow the starboard gun crews on deck, sir, we are hard pressed…'

Keene turned. 'Starbowlines!' he roared, 'Boarding pikes and cutlasses!' The order was picked up by the bosun's mates and the men, assisting their mates at the larboard guns, ran for the small arms racks around the masts.

'Skelton, do you take command here!'

Keene adjusted the martingale of his hanger on his wrist. Turning to White he managed a lopsided smile, 'Come on young shaver…'

White pulled out his toy dirk.

'Starbowlines! Forrard Companionway! Follow me!'

A ragged cheer broke out, barely audible amid the thunder of the adjacent guns. But it broke into a furious yell as the men emerged onto the sunlit deck where the melee was now desperate. Although the attempts of the rebels to enter Cyclops through the main deck ports had been repulsed, on the upper deck it was a different story. The initial shock of the boarding party had carried them well on to the British frigate's quarterdeck. At the extreme after end Wheeler and his marines were drawn into a line loading and firing behind a precise hedge of bayonets. After a few sallies the boarders drew back and turned their attention to the forward end where the resistance, led by Lieutenant Devaux, was fierce but piecemeal, the seamen and officers defending themselves as best they might.

Although the American militia were unsteady troops they fought well enough against the seamen and gradually began to overwhelm the defenders. Once the Americans reached the waist in force they could drop down into the gun-deck and their possession of the British frigate was only a matter of time. The fighting was fierce, a confusion of musketry, pistol flashes and slashing blades. Men screamed with rage or pain, officers shouted orders, their voices hoarse with exhaustion or shrill with fear and all the while the two ships discharged their main batteries at each other at point blank range in a continuous cacophony of rumbling concussions, the smoke of which rolled over the frightful business above.

Poor Bennett, forced over a gun, died of a bayonet wound.

Stewart, the master's mate, weakened by the consequences of his amorous adventure at Falmouth, parried the French commander's sword but failed to riposte. The Frenchman was quicker and Stewart too fell in his own gore on the bloody deck.

From the fore-top Drinkwater was uncertain of the progress of the fight below since it was obscured by powder smoke. Between the fore- and main-tops the threat of aerial invasion via the rigging seemed to have been stemmed when Drinkwater heard the yells of Keene's counter attack. He saw them on the American ship where more men were assembling to attack. They sent a case of langridge into the Rebel waist: men fell, dispersed and reassembled. Drinkwater's gun fired again.

'Two rounds left, zur!' Tregembo shouted in his ear.

'Blast it!' he shouted back. 'What the hell do we do then?'

'Dunno zur.' The man looked below. 'Join in down there, zur?' Drinkwater looked down. The gunfire seemed to have eased and the wind cleared some of the smoke. He saw White, his dirk flashing, shoved aside by an American who lunged at a British warrant officer. The master's mate took the thrust on the thigh and the American grimaced as the spurned White stabbed him in the side. Devaux, with his hanger whirling in one hand and a clubbed pistol in the other, was laying about himself like a maniac urging on Keene's men and the remnants of the upper deck gun crews.

Aft of him Drinkwater saw Cranston out on the main yardarm cutting away any gear that bound the two ships together.

Of course, they must prise Cyclops away from the rebel ship.

'We must separate the two ships, Tregembo!'

'Aye zur, but she'm to wind'ard.'

It was true. The wind's pressure was holding La Creole's hull alongside Cyclops as efficiently as if they were lashed together. Drinkwater looked below again and his eyes rested on the anchors. Earlier in the day Devaux had had the hands bending a cable to the sheet anchor as they closed the American coast. All they had to do was to let it go.

'The sheet anchor, Tregembo!' he shouted excitedly, pointing downwards.

Tregembo instantly grasped the idea. They both leapt for the forestay. The anchor was secured to the starboard fore channels by chain. The chains terminated in pear links through which many turns of hemp lashing were passed, securing the anchor to the ship.

Snatching out his knife Tregembo attacked the stock lashing whilst Drinkwater went for that at the crown.

The shouting, screaming mass of struggling men were only feet away from them yet, because La Creole had come aboard on Cyclops's port quarter, the fo'c's'le was a comparative haven. Then someone in the privateer's tops opened fire with a musket. The ball struck the anchor fluke and whined away in ricochet. Sweat rolled off the two men and Drinkwater began to curse his fine idea, thinking the seizing would never part. His head throbbed with the din of battle and the bruise that Morris had given him. Another ball smacked into the deck between his feet. His back felt immensely huge, a target the marksman could not fail to hit at the next shot.

Tregembo grunted, his seizing parted and the sudden jerk snapped the remaining strands of Drinkwater's. The anchor dropped with a splash.

'I hope to God the cable runs…'

It did, enough at least to permit the anchor to reach the bottom where it bit, broke loose and bit again, snubbing the two ships round head to the current that runs inexorably north east up the coast of Florida and Carolina. The current pulled each hull, but Cyclops held, her anchor bringing her up against the force of it. Drinkwater moved aft. He was the first to detect a grinding between the ships that told where La Creole slowly disengaged herself from her foe.

'She's off lads, we've got 'em!' One head turned, then another, then all at once the British rallied, seeing over their heads the movement in the enemy's ship.

They took up the cry and with renewed vigour carried on the work of stabbing and cutting their adversaries. Looking over their shoulders the Franco-Americans began to realise what was going on. The militia were the first to break, running and scrambling over friend and foe alike.

La Creole scraped slowly aft, catching frequently and only tearing herself finally clear of Cyclops after a minute or two. Sufficient time elapsed for most of her men to return to her, for the exhausted British let them go. The final scenes of the action would have been comic if they had not occurred in such grim circumstances with the dead and dying of three nations scattered about the bloody deck.

Several men leapt overboard and swam to where their comrades were lowering ropes over the side. One of these was the French commander who gesticulated fiercely from the dramatic eminence of the frigate's rail before plunging overboard and swimming strongly for his own ship.

On Cyclops's gangway a negro was on his knees, rolling his eyes, his hands clasped in an unmistakable gesture of submission. Seeing Drinkwater almost alone in the forepart of the ship the negro flung himself down at his feet. Behind him Devaux seemed bent on running him through, a Devaux with blood lust in his eyes…

'No, no massa, Ah do surrenda sah! Jus' like that Gen'ral Burgoyne, sah, Ah do surrenda!' It was Wheeler who eventually overcame the first lieutenant and brought him to his senses by telling him the captain wanted him aft. The negro, thankfully ignored, attached himself to Drinkwater.

The two ships were now two cables apart. Neither of them was in a fit condition to re-engage immediately.

'That,' said Captain Hope to Mr Blackmore as they emerged from the defensive hedge made for them by Wheeler and his marines, 'That was a damned close thing!'

The sailing master nodded with unspoken relief. Hope barked a short, nervous laugh.

'The devil'll have to wait a little longer for us, eh Blackmore?'

La Creole drifted astern.

'Cut that cable, mister,' ordered Hope when Devaux eventually reached him, 'and find out who let the anchor go.'

'Might I suggest we weigh it, sir…'

'Cut it, dammit, I want to re-engage before he spreads the news of our arrival on the coast.'

Devaux shrugged and turned forward.

Hope turned to the sailing master. 'We're in soundings then.'

'Aye, sir,' said the old man recollecting himself.

'Make sail, we'll finish that rebel first.'

But La Creole was already shaking out her canvas. She was to leeward and soon under way. Fifteen minutes later Cyclops was before the wind, two and three-quarter miles astern of the privateer.

That was still the position when darkness set in.

Below, in the cockpit Drinkwater sat having his shoes polished by the negro. He was unable to rid himself of the encumbrance and in the aftermath of action no one seemed to bother about the addition to Cyclops's complement.

'What's your name?' he asked fascinated by the ebony features of the man.

'Mah name, sah, is Ach'lles and Ah am your serbant…'

'My servant?' said Drinkwater astonished.

'Yes sah! You sabe ma life. Ach'lles your best fre'nd.'