A Question of Duty Read online

  A Question of Duty

  by

  Martin McDowell

  Published in 2014 by FeedARead.com Publishing

  Copyright © - Martin McDowell

  First Edition

  The author has asserted their moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the copyright holder, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  Acknowledgements

  The Trafalgar Companion –

  A Guide to History’s Most Famous Sea Battle and

  the Life of Admiral Lord Nelson

  by Mark Adkin

  Patrick O’Brian for his Jack Aubrey Novels

  Dedication

  To Doreen, my wife, Amy and Steven

  “Look at Troubridge! Tacking his ship into

  action as though all the eyes of England

  were upon him. And I wish to God they were!

  Admiral Jervis observing Captain Troubridge of

  HMS Culloden leading the English Fleet

  into action at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent

  14th February 1797

  Contents

  Chapter 1 – A Crack Frigate

  Chapter 2 – By Their Deeds Shalt Thou

  Know Them

  Chapter 3 – Affairs Ashore

  Chapter 4 – Sinead Malley

  Chapter 5 – La Pomone

  Chapter 6 – New Shipmates

  Chapter 7 – Witness or Defendant?

  Chapter 8 – A Question of Duty

  Chapter 9 – Delivery

  Chapter 10 – Praise and Recrimmination

  Chapter 11 – A Settling of Accounts

  Chapter 12 – A Life More Sedate

  Chapter 13 – Just Conclusions

  Chapter One

  A Crack Frigate

  Two tall ships, stern and resolute, each much burdened by a tower of white sail, stood out bright against the contrasting pastel blues of a hurrying sea and shifting sky. Both were players in the high drama that had built between them throughout a flawless day in the high summer of 1809, their theatre being the Western Approaches, where the Atlantic and The Channel merge together. On this day their stage was a benign, but busy ocean, stretching far out to meet a ruler straight horizon that supported a backdrop of royal blue and this burnished sky continued the set by soaring upwards to hold scattered and wayward clouds, stragglers from an earlier, thicker day, all now sailing on to crowd the far distance. The azure sea added its colour; regular waves rolling hopelessly after the hurrying white billows above, leaving white horses to fall back from their crests as they quickly surrendered the unequal chase.

  All was pushed on by a stiff Northeast wind that had cleared the skies of the unseasonable rain of the previous days and, harnessing that wind, bursting through the waves, the two vessels added their lazy beauty to the unblemished picture of an ocean in lively mood, their urgent passage marring its surface with a blue-white and far extending wake. Now, under a mile apart, each carried a full spread of sail in the muscular wind, for each was on their maximum canvas, both vessels on the edge of sailing prudence. One thing alone stood in clear contrast; the leader had her gunports picked out by a contrasting band, yellow on black, but those of the chaser, black on a dull, reddish brown. These were clearly the colours of the different navies, perhaps of warring nations, and both were running full before the wind, receiving its power not quite perfectly over the stern, but just enough from their left to be termed over the larboard quarter. Both were steering South South West and neither had yet shown any colours, but clearly one was the pursuer, the other the pursued.

  Captain Reuben Argent stood alone on his portion of the leading ship’s quarterdeck, this being the weather-side, from where came the wind, this portion of the polished decking being his by right and tradition. He was tall, just turned 30, and on the lean side of muscular, but certainly of fair appearance, finely chiselled features under a shock of wayward chestnut brown hair. He gazed along the length of his ship, HMS Ariadne, his first command, but his dark blue eyes took in nothing of the ordered deck arranged before him. He could feel the strength of the wind against the left side of his face, but more importantly to him, he had his mind focused on what came to his left hand resting on a thick hawser, this rejoicing in the title of larboard mizzen royal backstay, a vital support that arched up to the highest spar of the mizzenmast. All his senses were turned towards the vibration that was carried down this immense cable that ran from the high mast to the deck, then for him to combine the message with what he sensed of the strength and constancy of the wind. His ship took a dip in the regular waves and, without thinking, he braced his left side against the gunwale; the thick bar of polished wood that topped the ship’s side. Beneath, the sea hissed past and under his ship’s counter, passing mere feet from where he stood, above the deep swell of her wake that angled away, out into the far distance. The big driver sail, lowest on the mizzen mast and angled hard out to starboard, rose straining above him; it now bellied full out, to add its weight to the enormous force that thrust his ship onward and through the easy swell.

  All on the Quarterdeck showed calm, as though on a fleet review. Two steersmen stood at the wheel, occasionally studying the compass in the binnacle, more often studying the pennants at the mastheads that told of the wind’s direction. Two Officers and a Midshipman had their telescopes permanently levelled back over the taffrail, focused on their pursuer. Their ship curtsied and slid to starboard and all on deck subconsciously leaned away from the movement beneath their feet. Whatever was being conveyed to Argent through the backstay had arrived in the affirmative and Argent looked up to the final two vacant spars at the very tops of his masts.

  “Set Royals. Mizzen and main.”

  The Officer of the Watch, Second Lieutenant Lucius Bentley, had for sometime been standing close by. Not close enough to be intrusive, but close enough to create no danger of missing any bidding from his Captain.

  “Aye aye, Sir.”

  He hurried forward to the Quarterdeck rail, where the Captain’s sanctum dropped down to the gun deck, and he leaned his protruding stomach and angular face over it.

  “Mr. Ball.”

  A tall figure, thickset, which distorted the impression of his actual height, turned from studying the near acre of straining canvas and then he, the First Bosun’s Mate, lifted a lined, weather-beaten face, framed in ginger whiskers, to the voice above him.

  “Sir?”

  “Set Mizzen and Main Royals.”

  Henry Ball couldn’t keep the tone of enquiry from his voice, the canvas already set amounted to well over an acre, but it was soon banished by the acknowledgement of the order.

  “ Royals, Sir? Mizzen and Main. Aye aye Sir.”

  A blast on his silver call whistled across the deck, then his bellicose voice roused the Larboard Watch, idle but alert on the gangways and forecastle. His fellow Bosun’s Mates, standing idle for just such as this, immediately joined in. The response was instant, the men swarmed up to the highest ratlines and the two sails fell and were sheeted home. Argent checked the set of the canvas and then trained his own glass back over the rail.

  George Fraser, Ship’s Bosun, never without a pained nor aggrieved expression on his face, looked up at the new sails now drawing hard at the very tops of their masts.

  “O
h My Lord. He’ll have the sticks out of her, see if he don’t. Then where will we be? Wholly done for! Done and trussed.”

  He said this to no one in particular and none heard other than his good friend, off duty Quartermaster Zachary Short. They could have been brothers, years in the Navy had rendered both weather-beaten, stocky, and scowling. Fraser pulled himself up over the gunwale, his oaken face matching the oiled wood.

  “And I be feelin’ for that cathead. This be dealin’ more strain on him than any anchor ever could.”

  His narrowed eyes looked with maternal anxiety at the square, solid protrusion that came from the ship’s side just behind the bows, it cradling the huge starboard anchor. His pained and uneasy expression intensified as he studied the straining cable leading down from this most solid block of timber, back to an invisible collection of submerged barrels that existed at the end of the cable, somewhere in the deep. He took himself over to the larboard bow and studied the same; here also an identical cable was bent around that cathead and it also arrowed down to a similar collection of barrels. Each batch of barrels, one each side, were severely cutting their speed, holding the ship back via his treasured catheads. He straightened himself back on deck, sighed, frowned, cursed under his breadth and looked back along the ship to the quarterdeck.

  His Captain, Reuben Argent, was studying their pursuer. Through the fine lens of his good Dolland, a flickering red, white, and blue now showed as her ensign rippled in the wind behind the maze of rigging. This now confirmed her status, this being long assumed, that she was, indeed, a French cruiser. Details that had been blurred half an hour before were now more clear; the delicate timberwork below her bowsprit and also her figurehead, now showing as something birdlike. He saw his opponent set her own Royals that would maintain her continued gain on his own command. Her stunsails, on extensions to the larboard yardarms of each spar, widened the spread of canvas down her weather side. These had matched his own for some time. He snapped his glass shut, his mind making calculations. Seven bells in the forenoon watch; half an hour before midday, hours of daylight ahead. One hour more, he calculated, and she would be using her bow chaser guns, which his glass showed to be ready and run out.

  He turned to his First Lieutenant, Henry Fentiman. This was not his Watch, but in the circumstances he could be in no place other than the quarterdeck. Fentiman could have been kin to his Captain, apart from dark brown hair, nearly black, perhaps more humour in his eyes, and a countenance perhaps more ready to laugh at any humour that offered itself.

  “Have the men been fed?”

  “They are carrying their rations to their messes now, Sir.”

  “After the Noon Sight, clear for action.”

  “Aye aye, Sir.”

  “And Mr Fentiman!”

  “Sir?”

  “Leave the ship’s boats inboard. At least for now.”

  The Second Lieutenant had remained at his post. The Honourable Lucius Bentley had heard all and was puzzled. He looked at the ship’s boats, secure on their cradles between the masts.

  “And what of splinters, Sir? From shot hitting the boats?”

  Argent re-opened his glass and returned it to his eye, pointing aft.

  “Is it on this particular day of the year, Mr Bentley, that you are allowed to question my orders?”

  Bentley’s face alternated embarrassment and annoyance. Argent had not even deigned to look at him whilst delivering the rebuke, nor was he smiling. Bentley found it dismissive and negligent, but his face showed more sulk than simmer.

  “No. Sir.”

  “Then please aid the First Lieutenant to carry out my orders, in the manner that I wish them. And Mr. Bentley.”

  “Sir?”

  “You may run up The Colours.”

  Bentley’s face remained set and grim.

  “Aye aye, Sir.”

  oOo

  The three Midshipmen sat cramped in their berth. The three were wholly unalike from each other, in as many points of comparison as could be imagined; height, build, age, intelligence, and social standing; save, perhaps, one point. Midshipmen William Bright and Daniel Berry could both be described as being of cheerful and optimistic temperament. Both were attending to their Journal to record their day so far aboard the warship; Berry writing, Bright drawing the joining of the foremast and foretopmast at the foretop. The third, The Honourable Jonathan Ffynes was looking on with both disdain and annoyance. Watery blue eyes looked down from a corpulent face from which jutted a nose pointed and a little too long. Lank blond hair hung down from the top of his head as gravity dictated, his own Journal was days in arrears. His tone was both languid and sarcastic.

  “I fail utterly to see the point of what you are doing. Come nightfall we could all be in irons, wet through in some French bilge, and all that you do now, thrown over the side. Or us dead; of course.”

  Bright looked up. His character matched his name. He was the shorter, but then also the youngest, 15 years of age. Clear, brown eyes shone from a face a little wide, but this was to the good; it gave enough room for a most disarming smile.

  “You may be right, Jonathan, but I don’t think so. This may be our first action since the Captain assumed command, but he’s worked the ship hard at both gunnery and sail handling, and so I have faith. Perhaps so should you. What do you think, Daniel?”

  Berry looked up, puzzlement spreading over his face. He was the tallest and eldest, now into his twenties, but not the Senior; The Honourable, him having served an odd two months more, these within his 20 years, held that informal position. Berry considered his answer; until then he had been coping well enough with recording his day. Now a question requiring balance and thought was upon him.

  “It depends. Is she a lot bigger than us?

  A pause.

  “And who fires best and fastest.”

  Bright looked at Fynes, nodded, and grinned.

  “There. He agrees. It’s down to gunnery.”

  Ffynes was unconvinced, especially about their Captain.

  “And what are those barrels all about, dragging us back?

  Bright came up with an immediate answer.

  “Ah, on my Watch I heard the Captain discussing this with the First. He wants the Frenchman to think we are a poor sailer, slow, to tempt him up close, so that we can then cut the barrels loose and nip upwind, with a turn he can’t match, him being too close to follow. He’s trusting the ship; and us!”

  Ffynes looked puzzled, but an intruding voice, that of an adult used to authority, shouted in through their door.

  “Change of watch. Noon Sight. And we’re clearing for action.”

  All three dropped whatever was in their hands and filled them instead with their sextants, almanacs and boards, then they hurried to the quarterdeck. The ceremonial fixing of the ship’s position was upon them, a procedure almost religious in its ritual. The hand of the Quartermaster’s Mate was about to turn the glass and ring eight bells, as the breathless Midshipmen stepped into the Captain’s presence and, with their arrival, the glass was turned. The Ship’s Master, Leviticus McArdle, tall, thin, sepulchral, and Scottish, was in his place, facing the direction of the sun. Whatever mood he was in, within the company of Midshipmen and apprentice Master’s Mates, his face never failed to register wholesale disapproval. He raised his sextant, which signal required all others in the Noon Sight party to do the same, this solemnity being accompanied by the sound of hammering, as chocks were removed to disappear the wooden screens that divided the main gundeck into cabins, one of these being McArdle’s own. All brought the sun down to the horizon in their mirrors and then considered their reading, then, after much awkward thumbing through their Almanacs, they each chalked their findings onto their board and waited. McArdle consulted his own sextant and Almanac, then allowed the heavy instrument to carry his simian like arm down to his side. All his pupils held up their boards. All said a latitude reading between 49 degrees 15 minutes to 49 degrees 45 minutes. All save that of Daniel Berry. His r
ead 48 degrees 25. McArdle’s dour Scottish eyes moved up to Berry’s face like an elevating gun.

  “Mr Berry. On a longitude of 4 degrees 14, ye have placed us somewhere in the middle o’ Brittany. Tomorrow your reading will agree with mine, or ye will spend some time at the masthead. Go forward now and practice. Ye need 49 degrees 20.”

  The chastened Berry hurried off, accompanied by Bright, whose reading had matched that of the Master perfectly, but, through friendship, he felt duty bound to try to help the inadequate Berry achieve the required improvement.

  Two seamen and a Bosun’s Mate had meanwhile been casting the log line. The sand in the log-glass ran out and the seaman set to watch its progress through the narrow neck called “stop”. The Mate nipped the line and called the log.

  “Eight knots, and a half, just over.”

  At that point two quick reports sounded from somewhere behind and two cannonballs skipped across the waves to sink, under 200 yards astern.

  oOo

  Argent had taken himself down to the gundeck and was sighting along the starboard of the two sternchaser guns. Ariadne, being 30 years old and Spanish built, was pierced for such guns, unlike more recently built frigates. Both crews stood obedient, awaiting his orders, their guns cleared and ready. The remains of Argent’s greatcabin, the last of the big stern windows, were now disappearing past them. The Gun Captains were plainly identified in their blue jackets, which, over the past months, had become edged with white ribbon, this progressively becoming recognised as standard Gun Captain uniform throughout the ship. Argent looked, straightened up, and then bent to look again. Finally he gave his orders.

  “You’re doing this for show. If you can do her damage, get some through her rigging, but not too quick; make it a bit Indiaman, a good merchantman. Am I clear?”