The Brave Captains Read online

  THE BRAVE CAPTAINS

  Selected Historical Fiction Published by McBooks Press

  BY ALEXANDER KENT

  The Complete Midshipman Bolitho

  Stand Into Danger

  In Gallant Company

  Sloop of War

  To Glory We Steer

  Command a King’s Ship

  Passage to Mutiny

  With All Despatch

  Form Line of Battle!

  Enemy in Sight!

  The Flag Captain

  Signal–Close Action!

  The Inshore Squadron

  A Tradition of Victory

  Success to the Brave

  Colours Aloft!

  Honour This Day

  The Only Victor

  Beyond the Reef

  The Darkening Sea

  For My Country’s Freedom

  Cross of St George

  Sword of Honour

  Second to None

  Relentless Pursuit

  Man of War

  Heart of Oak

  BY PHILIP MCCUTCHAN

  Halfhyde’s Island

  Halfhyde and the Guns of Arrest

  Halfhyde to the Narrows

  Halfhyde for the Queen

  Halfhyde Ordered South

  Halfhyde on Zanatu

  BY JAN NEEDLE

  A Fine Boy for Killing

  The Wicked Trade

  The Spithead Nymph

  BY JAMES L. NELSON

  The Only Life That Mattered

  BY JAMES DUFFY

  Sand of the Arena

  The Fight for Rome

  BY DEWEY LAMBDIN

  The French Admiral

  The Gun Ketch

  HMS Cockerel

  A King’s Commander

  Jester’s Fortune

  BY DUDLEY POPE

  Ramage

  Ramage & The Drumbeat

  Ramage & The Freebooters

  Governor Ramage R.N.

  Ramage’s Prize

  Ramage & The Guillotine

  Ramage’s Diamond

  Ramage’s Mutiny

  Ramage & The Rebels

  The Ramage Touch

  Ramage’s Signal

  Ramage & The Renegades

  Ramage’s Devil

  Ramage’s Trial

  Ramage’s Challenge

  Ramage at Trafalgar

  Ramage & The Saracens

  Ramage & The Dido

  BY FREDERICK MARRYAT

  Frank Mildmay or The Naval Officer

  Mr Midshipman Easy

  Newton Forster or The Merchant Service

  BY V.A.STUART

  Victors and Lords

  The Sepoy Mutiny

  Massacre at Cawnpore

  The Cannons of Lucknow

  The Heroic Garrison

  The Valiant Sailors

  The Brave Captains

  Hazard’s Command

  Hazard of Huntress

  Hazard in Circassia

  Victory at Sebastopol

  Guns to the Far East

  Escape from Hell

  BY DOUGLAS W. JACOBSON

  Night of Flames

  BY JULIAN STOCKWIN

  Kydd

  Artemis

  Seaflower

  Mutiny

  Quarterdeck

  Tenacious

  Command

  The Admiral’s Daughter

  The Privateer’s Revenge

  BY JOHN BIGGINS

  A Sailor of Austria

  The Emperor’s Coloured Coat

  The Two-Headed Eagle

  Tomorrow the World

  BY ALEXANDER FULLERTON

  Storm Force to Narvik

  Last Lift from Crete

  All the Drowning Seas

  A Share of Honour

  The Torch Bearers

  The Gatecrashers

  BY C.N.PARKINSON

  The Guernseyman

  Devil to Pay

  The Fireship

  Touch and Go

  So Near So Far

  Dead Reckoning

  BY DOUGLAS REEMAN

  Badge of Glory

  First to Land

  The Horizon

  Dust on the Sea

  Knife Edge

  BY DAVID DONACHIE

  The Devil’s Own Luck

  The Dying Trade

  A Hanging Matter

  An Element of Chance

  The Scent of Betrayal

  A Game of Bones

  BY BROOS CAMPBELL

  No Quarter

  The War of Knives

  Peter Wicked

  THE PHILLIP HAZARD NOVELS, NO . 2

  THE

  BRAVE

  CAPTAINS

  by

  V. A. STUART

  MCBOOKS PRESS, INC.

  ITHACA, NEW YORK

  Published by McBooks Press 2003

  Copyright © 1968, 1972 by V.A. Stuart

  First published in the United Kingdom by Robert Hale

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without the written permission of the publisher. Requests for such permissions should be addressed

  to McBooks Press, Inc.,

  ID Booth Building, 520 North Meadow St., Ithaca, NY 14850.

  Cover: Crimean War, British frigates engaging the Kilburn Forts, 16 October, 1855. Courtesy of Peter Newark’s Military Pictures.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Stuart, V. A.

  The brave captains / V.A. Stuart.

  p. cm. —(The Phillip Hazard novels ; no. 2)

  ISBN 1-59013-040-5 (alk. paper)

  1. Hazard, Phillip Horatio (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Great Britain—History, Naval—19th century—Fiction. 3. Balaklava (Ukraine), Battle of, 1854—Fiction. 4. Crimean War, 1853-1856—Fiction. 5. British—Ukraine—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR6063.A38B73 2003

  823’.914—dc21

  2003005260

  Visit the McBooks historical fiction website at www.mcbooks.com.

  Printed in the United States of America

  9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  With the exception of the Officers and Seamen of H.M.S. Trojan, all the British Naval and Military Officers in this novel really existed and their actions are a matter of historical fact. Their opinions are also, in most cases, widely known and where they have been credited with remarks of conversations—as, for example, with the fictitious characters—which are not actually their own words, care has been taken to make sure that these are, as far as possible, in keeping with their known sentiments.

  The remarks criticizing Army organization, attributed to Midshipman St. John Daniels (later V.C.) are based on opinions expressed at that time by a number of Naval Officers and, in particular, by Sir Evelyn Wood, V.C., in his From Midshipman to Field Marshal, published in 1906.

  The main events described are historically accurate and did actually take place, as described, according to books published, soon after the Crimean War ended, by those who took part in them.

  THIS NOVEL IS DEDICATED TO

  Commander Charles Gower Robinson, R.N.

  PROLOGUE

  1

  At 6:30 a.m. on October 17, 1854, the siege-guns of the Allied Armies of Britain and France opened fire on t
he Russian naval base of Sebastopol from their entrenched positions on the Crimean Upland, to the south of the city.

  The two armies, with their Turkish allies and supported by their fleets, had landed on the Crimean Peninsula at Kalamita Bay, to the north, on September 14 and, six days later, had defeated the Russians, under Prince Menschikoff, at the Battle of the Alma. Subsequently yielding to the French belief that Sebastopol was impregnable to attack from the north, the invaders had made a flank march inland, landing their siege-trains at Balaclava and Kamiesch. It had taken the better part of three weeks to haul the heavy guns into position on the Upland and to establish the army camps there but, by October 17, all was in readiness for the first full-scale bombardment which, it was hoped, would destroy the enemy’s land defenses. Those on the seaward side were to be attacked—as nearly simultaneously as might be possible—by the Allied Fleets.

  A well-directed fire was maintained from both works on the Upland for nearly four hours, the Russian garrison replying with spirit, in the awareness that this was a prelude to the long awaited assault on Sebastopol by the two besieging armies which, if it were successful, must lead to the city’s capture. At 10 a.m., however, a shell exploded the principal French magazine, causing considerable damage and loss of life and virtually paralyzing the French artillery. After a second explosion not long afterwards, General Canrobert—recently promoted to the French supreme command—sent an aide-de-camp to the British lines to announce that it would be out of the question for his troops to participate in any further action that day. Notwithstanding this news, the British batteries continued to pound away energetically at the Russian defensive works.

  At noon the combined Black Sea Fleets, consisting of eleven French, ten British, and two Turkish ships-of-the-line, in addition to frigates and steam gun-vessels, started to maneuver into line to engage the enemy’s sea defenses. Sebastopol lay shrouded under a thick pall of smoke from the land bombardment and it was impossible to judge with accuracy what was taking place ashore. No means of communication having been arranged between the naval and military forces, the two Admirals Commanding-in-Chief were unable to obtain information as to the progress of the land-based assault they had been requested to support. In the confident supposition that this must shortly take place—if, indeed, it had not already been launched—both flagships made the signal to their fleets to attack as soon as the line was complete. The maneuver occupied almost an hour, since the battleships under sail had to be towed into station by steamers lashed to their sides, and it was 1:15 p.m. before the first broadside was fired.

  In the meantime, despite the fact that the guns of the British Naval Brigade ashore had opened a breach in the Russian perimeter through which an assault might well have been attempted, the British military Commander-in-Chief, Lord Raglan—in the absence of French support—regretfully declined to order it. The regiments under arms detailed to form the first wave of the attack were, accordingly, permitted to stand down but the two fleets advanced valiantly to press home their own attack, unaware that their efforts were now to no purpose. They were met by a withering hail of shell and redhot shot.

  As darkness began to fall, the thunderous roar of gunfire from the Upland slackened and then ceased and, it being at last evident that no land-based assault on Sebastopol had been made, the naval signal for recall was hoisted, first by the Ville de Paris and then by the Britannia. The smoke of battle slowly cleared and, as the attacking ships hauled off, one—H.M.S. Rodney of 90 guns and under sail—was seen to have run aground in shoal water in perilous proximity to Fort Constantine. Under a heavy cannonade from the batteries which had her range, she was towed off by two small steamers, Spiteful and Lynx, each mounting six guns, assisted by the steam-screw frigate Trojan, 31, whose commander took his ship close inshore to draw the fort’s fire from the stricken Rodney.

  The French Fleet, under the command of Vice-Admiral Hamelin, set course for Kamiesch Bay to the south, followed by the Turkish flagship Mahmudieh. Vice-Admiral James Deans Dundas, Commander-in-Chief of the British Fleet, grimly recognizing that the action had been a failure, ordered his battered ships to return to their own anchorage at the mouth of the Katcha River, to the north of Sebastopol.

  The swiftly gathering darkness did not completely hide the melancholy spectacle they presented. Scarcely a ship of the inshore squadron had escaped damage, their Admiral observed despondently, as he studied them through his night-glass. Some had been hulled more than a score of times; Retribution had lost her mainmast, Trojan her foremast, and Arethusa was still fighting a fire on her upper deck. Shrouds and stays hung in tattered shreds from those whose masts had not gone by the board, and blackened, still smouldering decks were littered with a tangle of torn rigging and shattered yards, which their weary crews laboured to salvage or cut away.

  For nearly five hours the British fleet had discharged broadside after broadside at the great, stone-built fortress known as Constantine, which guarded the northern approaches to Sebastopol’s harbour. They had pitted their wooden ships against casemated batteries protected by immensely thick walls upon which, however rapid and well-aimed their fire, they had been able to make little visible impression. Prevented from storming the harbour by a line of blockships sunk across the entrance, most of the British line-of-battle ships had been out-ranged and out-gunned. Russian batteries, placed behind strongly constructed earthworks on the high cliffs behind the fort and firing bar and chain-shot had, even at extreme range, wrought havoc with their rigging and upper yards.

  The seamen had worked their guns heroically, stripped to the waist and half-blinded by smoke, as shells burst on the crowded decks, taking terrible toll of them. But they had carried on in the best traditions of the British Navy, only now to realize that all their heroism had been in vain, their courage and sacrifice wasted by the inaction of the troops on shore. Sebastopol was still securely in the hands of its Russian garrison and, to add to the bitter consciousness of failure, not one of the towering forts at the harbour mouth had been silenced. Save for a few minutes early in the engagement, when a lucky shot from H.M.S. Agamemnon, 91, flagship of Rear-Admiral Sir Edmund Lyons, had caused some stored ammunition to blow up, the guns of Fort Constantine had blazed continuous defiance.

  Even when, in an endeavour to shorten the range, Admiral Lyons had led the inshore squadron to within a scant six hundred yards of the fort itself, he had been compelled to drop anchor with less than two feet of water under his keel, and this had prevented all except the Sanspareil, 70—like Agamemnon, a steam-screw ship—from closing him. The other ships of his squadron, although able to bring their starboard broadsides to bear on the fort, had suffered severely from the enfilading fire of the cliff-top batteries ahead and astern of them, to which they had not the elevation to reply. These batteries had thrown hot-shot with devastating effect, setting several ships on fire, among them the Agamemnon herself. Her crew had, however, brought the blaze under control and the flagship had held her station, discharging repeated broadsides at her target, at times almost alone. First Albion, 91, then London, 90, and then the 50-gun frigate Arethusa—all sailing ships and all gallantly commanded—had been forced to break off and permit the steamers to which they were lashed to tow them out of range.

  The Navy had paid a high price for the little—the tragically little—that the bombardment of Sebastopol’s seaward defenses had achieved, Admiral Dundas thought bitterly. And when, next day, he waited in the spacious stern-cabin of his 120-gun flagship Britannia for reports of damage and lists of killed and wounded to reach him from individual commanders, he grew increasingly bitter.

  The combined Fleets had suffered 520 casualties in the abortive action, of which the British Fleet’s total was 44 killed and 266 wounded and, of the latter, the Admiral knew, many would die from their injuries within the next few days. He felt understandably resentful as he set about the difficult task of composing a despatch for the Board of Admiralty later that afternoon, when all the reports had come in
. He had advised very strongly against an attack on Sebastopol from the sea, convinced that the sinking of the enemy blockships at the entrance to the harbour must render such an attack ineffective. Lord Raglan had, however, seen fit to disregard his advice and when, after lengthy discussion, what had seemed to him a most ill-conceived plan of attack had been agreed upon, the French had insisted on changing even this … and at the eleventh hour, when his own ships were already clearing for action. He shook his head in weary frustration.

  Their Lordships could scarcely be expected to approve of the long casualty lists and the damage to so many ships-of-the-line, he was unhappily aware. A successful bombardment of the sea forts, culminating in the capture of Sebastopol by the Allied land forces, might have justified the naval losses … but an unsuccessful engagement, which the Army commanders had so lamentably failed to turn to advantage, could not possibly redound to his credit. Conscious that the costly failure was not his fault, Admiral Dundas knew that, so far as their Lordships of the Admiralty were concerned, he would be held responsible nonetheless, and he endeavoured to pen his despatch optimistically, writing it in his own hand, instead of dictating the carefully phrased sentences to his Secretary.

  When it was done, he read it through, frowning. Certain documentary evidence might with advantage, he decided, be appended to his report. Copies of letters from Lord Raglan and of various notes he had sent to and received from Admiral Hamelin were filed in his Letter Book. In addition there was a copy of the official communiqué, signed by Lord Raglan and General Canrobert, in which was set out, in detail, the military plan of action and the request for naval support. These might possibly absolve him from blame, if not entirely from responsibility, in their Lordships’ eyes. At least they would serve to demonstrate that he had wanted no part in yesterday’s costly fiasco and that he had agreed to the Generals’ demands because, eventually, he had been left with no alternative. He could not put into words, could not even hint—in an official des- patch to the Admiralty—at his dissatisfaction with his French Allies, whose system of command was such that it left all major decisions on naval strategy to be made by the military Commander-in-Chief.