The Valiant Sailors Page 2

  Admiral Hazard, following the family tradition, had sent him to sea as a naval cadet at the age of thirteen and had himself been appointed to his first ship—H.M.S. Captain, 74—when he was barely eleven but in time, as he had just proudly recalled, to serve under Nelson’s command at the Battle of Cape St Vincent. But now he was approaching his 68th year and, with indifferent health, was beginning to show his age, Phillip thought, conscious of an unexpected pang as the cabby, in obedience to his signal, whipped up his horse and the cab started to move away. If the duration of the war with Russia should prove to be longer than the five or six months predicted by the experts, this might well be the last time that they would see each other, he realized. The last time, perhaps, that he would feel that thin old hand clasp his and listen to the rasping injunction to remember that he had a name to live up to … he smothered a sigh.

  “Carry yer bag, sir?” A porter was hovering at his elbow but Phillip shook his head. Reminded of the reason for his presence at the station, he picked up his small grip and went to stand by the entrance to the booking hall, looking about him speculatively. No one even remotely resembling the two ladies he had been commanded to meet appeared, as yet, to have arrived but, consulting his pocket watch he saw that— thanks to his father’s passion for punctuality—there was still plenty of time before the departure of the Plymouth train. To make assurance doubly sure, he went on to the platform and, having ascertained that they were not on the train, he left his bag in a vacant first class carriage and returned to his vantage point by the booking office.

  He was, as instructed, in uniform and he hoped, on this account, that the ladies he sought would pick him out from the crowd of other travellers and make themselves known to him, should he himself fail to recognize them. He frowned, as two ladies muffled in furs walked past him without any sign of recognition. As he had explained to his father, he had been told very little when he called at the Admiralty. The confidential nature of his mission had been impressed on him and was emphasized by the sealed orders he had been given to deliver to his Captain. These, presumably, concerned the two ladies who were to be the Trojan’s passengers but, being sealed, were not for his eyes and he could expect no details, unless Captain North chose to confide in him, which … Phillip’s firm young mouth compressed. Which would not assist him in his present search and was, in any event, unlikely since Captain North had already demonstrated a marked preference for keeping his own counsel.

  As his father had observed, the whole affair was more than a little odd, he thought, glancing again at his watch. Ladies, it was true, were not infrequently carried as passengers aboard naval vessels in peacetime, and many captains brought their wives with them when cruising or on being posted to a new station. Often they invited female relatives and friends as guests, on a cruise of short duration—this was one of the privileges of command and was officially permitted by the Board of Admiralty. But at a time like this—when a declaration of war was expected almost hourly and when H.M.S. Trojan was under orders to proceed to the seat of war—the reason for their Lordship’s decision to allow two ladies of importance to take passage in her was difficult to imagine.

  Indeed, it passed his comprehension. He had welcomed the news no more enthusiastically than Captain North had welcomed it yesterday, when the Admiralty’s instructions had reached them … the only occasion, in fact, when he and his commander had seen completely eye to eye about anything, Phillip reminded himself wryly. Admittedly he had found consolation in the prospect of being able to bid his family farewell, while the Captain had been annoyed at having to dispense with his services for 24 hours but … he started to pace restlessly up and down, still keeping a watchful eye on the station entrance.

  His father had urged him to seek a command of his own, he reflected, and expelled his breath in a deep sigh of frustration. There was nothing he wanted more, heaven knew, but this was the first appointment he had held in his present rank and his chances of a command were slight. He had been gratified when promotion to First Lieutenant of a frigate had been offered him, although it had meant leaving the St Jeanne d’Acre, a 101-gun ship-of-the-line—at this moment on her way to the Baltic with Admiral Napier’s Fleet—and her much loved commander, Captain the Honourable Henry Keppel, under whom he had been serving at the time. Now, however … Phillip permitted himself a tight-lipped smile. Now he regretted the change, although he had not told his father so, and regretted it with increasing bitterness with each passing day.

  He had served under Captain North for nearly two months and relations between them were still as strained and unhappy as they had been after the first day, when the newly appointed Captain had arrived on board the Trojan to read his commission to the assembled ship’s company. From the outset, they had found themselves opposed, both professionally and personally. No doubt the fault for this was largely his own, Phillip thought, forcing himself to review the situation objectively. He had resented North’s appointment to command of the Trojan and, perhaps, had failed to hide his resentment … but he had reason, surely, to feel resentful?

  It had been he, not North, who had put the ship in commission. He had done so, he recalled, when she was lying in an uncovered dock with her masts out and no copper on, her engines being overhauled, her rudder in a shed repairing, and ten foot of water in her hold. Since no captain had then been appointed, it had been left to him to supervise her fitting-out and manning, to wrangle with the foreman shipwright, the dockyard engineers and painters—even to plead with the Admiral-Superintendent, on occasions—so that his ship’s needs might be satisfied. He had entered her crew, had stood over the sailmaker and the carpenter and their mates, watching the progress of their work with a critical eye, passing nothing that failed to reach his own exacting standards of perfection.

  During those weeks of preparation, while Trojan was masted, rigged, armed, stored, and provisioned, she had been his ship. As he had watched the masts and yards rise and the rigging take shape and listened to the powerful hum of her newly tuned engines, he had come to love her as other men love a woman, with all the pride and the passionate devotion that was in him. He had been fully aware than she was not his ship, of course. He had neither expected nor hoped to be given command of her—a 31-gun frigate was a post-command and he was too junior—but he had hoped that a captain who was worthy of her might be appointed when the time came. A man of the calibre of Henry Keppel, perhaps, and instead … Phillip’s hands clenched convulsively at his sides. Instead, their Lordships had given Trojan to Thomas North.

  He frowned, endeavouring to analyse his feelings concerning North, to justify them. It was not only that he disliked the man. Other things being equal, he could have overcome his dislike or, at least, contrived to conceal it, for he was not by nature rebellious or inclined to criticize his superiors. In North’s case, however, his feelings went deeper than mere personal dislike—he mistrusted his senior’s professional capabilities, his seamanship and judgement, and doubted his fitness for command. Worse still, he could not escape the uneasy conviction that, when the real test came, Thomas North would be found wanting. His fears on this score were probably more instinctive than reasoned but, for all that … Phillip halted his restless pacing. For all that, they haunted him and he could not erase them from his mind.

  The advent of war with Russia had, he knew, made heavy demands on the manpower reserves of the British Navy. Many more ships than were normally required had had to be put into commission and officers and seamen found to man them. Inevitably a number of officers, who had been on half-pay for many years, had received seagoing appointments … and Captain North was one of these, a man approaching fifty, whose last command had been that of a 6-gun brig on the West Africa Station. His ship had paid off in 1841 and he had been on shore ever since, either not wishing or being unable to obtain another command, while his name rose slowly higher on the Navy List.

  He ranked now as a post-captain but he had never before commanded so large a ship or so many m
en. He had no experience of steam and Trojan was fitted with an auxiliary screw-propeller and engines of 300 horsepower. In addition to her seamen and marines, she carried a full complement of engineers and stokers, of whose particular functions Captain North knew nothing … and concerning which, on his own admission, he had no desire for enlightenment.

  “Engines, Mr Hazard, are auxiliary to sail and, in my view, they always will be,” he had stated, his tone dogmatic and brooking no argument. “I shall thank you to remember this, even if you do chance to hold a certificate to prove that you have successfully completed a course of study in the use of steam-power. In my ship the engines will, no doubt, serve their purpose when it is a question of entering or leaving harbour but, at all other times, they will be auxiliary. There is a qualified engineer”—he made the word sound offensive—“in charge of the engines, leave them to him. You will best please me by working up the seamen’s divisions to the peak of efficiency I’m accustomed to and am entitled to expect of a smart crew and a competent first lieutenant. I’ll tolerate no slackness aloft, Mr Hazard … no slackness at all!”

  “There will be none, sir,” Phillip had assured him. “The men are shaping well and—” but Captain North had not allowed him to go on.

  He had interrupted coldly, “Do not be too sure of that, Mr Hazard. We have a great many raw hands and half-trained coastguards to lick into shape and very little time in which to do it. I shall require all officers to assist in training by their personal example and I shall hold you, as First Lieutenant, responsible for setting that example. My standards are high— a good deal higher than you’ve been used to, I’ve no doubt—and it is evident to me that discipline on board this ship leaves much to be desired. In the absence of an experienced senior officer you have permitted too much laxity … particularly where the officers are concerned. Well, we must put that right, Mr Hazard … we must tighten up discipline and I shall see to it myself. For a start, I intend to grant no requests for shore leave until I am satisfied that all officers have earned the privilege … which includes yourself, is that clear?”

  It had been made abundantly clear … Phillip gritted his teeth in futile bitterness as he remembered. These had been almost the first words his new Captain had addressed to him, after having inspected the ship and her company, and he had found fault with everything he saw, with all that had been accomplished prior to his own appointment. There had been other speeches on similar lines and, each day, a carefully compiled list of minor complaints and criticisms, given to him in writing … always with the suggestion that his standards were not high enough.

  Yet Captain Keppel’s standards had been high, he thought angrily. There had been few smarter ships than the Jenny d’Acre, as her seamen affectionately called her. Certainly there had been none better disciplined than the lovely 44-gun frigate Maeander, which Captain Keppel had previously commanded and in which—first as Mate and then, on promotion, as junior lieutenant—he himself had served a three-year commission. Maeander, lying with lower yards and topmasts struck, could get her royal yards across in under six minutes, Phillip recalled, with nostalgic pride. Quite recently, Acre, with a raw crew and a gale blowing, had reefed all three topsails in a little over three … a considerable feat in such conditions, which had earned her a “Well done, Acre,” from the flagship, whose own hands were still struggling with hers. But then Harry Keppel had always found occasion to praise, to express appreciation of work well done and to encourage his men … unlike North who, it seemed, could only criticize and condemn.

  North held himself aloof and was a stickler for formality, insisting that both officers and men show him the deference due to his rank, at all times and without relaxation. He liked to think of himself as a “taut hand,” and he punished with extreme severity, paying meticulous attention to petty details which most captains would have deemed unworthy of their notice.

  His gig’s crew, for example, had undergone the most rigorous “Smartening up” exercises, the Captain supervising their training himself. In the course of a single week, he had put four different midshipmen in charge and had expressed dissatisfaction with each one. His coxswain and steward—both tried and trusted long-service men—went in mortal terror of him and had begged to be relieved of their duties, and two of the gig’s crew had deserted, one an A.B. with an exemplary record, who had been commended for gallantry.

  The same pattern was repeated, on a larger scale, throughout the ship. Soon there was scarcely an officer whose leave had not been stopped, on the Captain’s instructions, for failure to put his heart into his work. No one escaped the caustic lash of North’s tongue and the senior watch-keeping lieutenants and warrant officers were no more immune to punishment and public reprimand than were the midshipmen and boys. In the sacred name of discipline, seamen were sent to the gratings for comparatively minor misdemeanours and officers constantly humiliated … Phillip’s cheeks burned, as the unpleasant memories came flooding back into his mind. He resumed his measured pacing, back and forth, in front of the booking office, lost now in his own thoughts and no longer consciously watching the station entrance.

  Discipline in the British Navy has always been severe and even harsh, at times, as he knew only too well. A high degree of discipline was essential when the lives of hundreds of men and the safety of their ship often depended on instant and unquestioning obedience to orders. Provided that it was enforced justly and combined with efficient command, few rebelled against the severity of naval discipline or doubted its necessity. A commander whose seamanship won the respect and trust of his men could drive them relentlessly without incurring their active resentment. But the men’s trust was not easily given and … Phillip frowned. North’s command was not efficient and his seamanship had so far inspired little confidence.

  On their first brief shakedown cruise after Trojan completed for sea, he had permitted two grave errors on the part of the elderly Master to pass, apparently without being aware of either, and his handling of the ship under sail had been, to say the least of it, hesitant and uncertain. It had continued to be unimpressive and there had been an almost uniform look of strained bewilderment on the faces of the old hands, before the cruise ended. Even the younger men, whose pride in their ship had been intense, were uneasy when her sailing trials took place and, matched against other ships of the Fleet, she had made a poor showing.

  Trojan’s steaming trials had also been disappointing, her newly fitted engines constantly breaking down. North, cursing the shipwrights and engineers and his own First Lieutenant with equal vehemence, obtained permission to return the ship to the dockyard basin, so that an addition might be made to her false keel and an overhaul of her engines put in hand. All this had held her up for longer than expected, delayed her sailing for gunnery exercises with the Channel Squadron and necessitated turning the crew over to a hulk once more, with all the resultant inconvenience and extra work.

  Phillip sighed in remembered frustration. The men were not deceived by these excuses for their ship’s mediocre performance … they had begun to sense, in the uncanny way seamen always did, that all was not well and they were uneasy. By the time Captain North declared himself ready to put to sea again, it was mid-February and the Channel Squadron, under Rear-Admiral Sir Armar Lowry-Corry, was exercising off the Portuguese coast, their crews already approaching a high state of efficiency. Trojan was instructed to rejoin and the spirits of her men rose. But, after a stormy passage through the Bay of Biscay, during which all three top-gallant masts went over the side and the main topmast was found to be sprung, she had done little more than salute the Rear-Admiral’s flag when orders were received to return to Spithead.

  It was rumoured that Her Majesty the Queen would hold a review of the battle squadrons before their departure for the Baltic, now generally believed to be imminent. Excitement ran high, as the long line of ships came-to off the Spit and dropped anchor, their guns booming out in salute to the flag of the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Charles Napier, then fly
ing from the main of the Princess Royal.

  There had been talk of Cronstadt and Sweaborg, Phillip recalled, with eager speculation as to the chances of being in action against the Russian Fleet, and he and his shipmates had joined in the discussion with as much enthusiasm as any. Next day, however, Trojan was detached from the Baltic Fleet and, designated as an addition to Rear-Admiral Sir Edmund Lyons’s small steamer squadron in the Black Sea, was sent to Cork, to ferry troops from some of the Irish garrisons to Plymouth. To the chagrin of her officers and men, she had returned to Plymouth and was lying there, awaiting orders to proceed to Constantinople, when the Royal Review took place at Spithead on 10th and 11th March. Immediately afterwards, the Fleet weighed for Copenhagen.

  He had been as disappointed as the rest of the ship’s company, Phillip thought, to have missed so great and historic an occasion as that which had marked the Queen’s visit to Spithead. Yet, in spite of this, he had been secretly relieved that Trojan had not been sent to the Baltic, where there was the prospect of early action. He was not satisfied with the progress made in training by the crew and Captain North’s handling of the ship, which had been at its worst during the storm they had encountered on their way to Lisbon, still worried him more than he cared to admit, even to himself. In addition, his superior’s insistence on the continued need to tighten up discipline was the source of even greater anxiety to him, since this, he was wretchedly aware, was likely to have an adverse effect on the morale of every soul on board.

  Morale, Phillip reflected, was of supreme importance in a fighting ship, as he had learnt by experience. Although at the start of any commission, a new and untried crew had—as Captain North had put it—“to be licked into shape,” no amount of coercion could weld the men into an effective and reliable fighting unit if their morale were lowered beyond a certain point. Discipline, harshly applied for its own sake, was useless when men reached the state the Trojan’s men had reached. Once pride in their ship had been lost, there had to be some relaxation of discipline, some concession offered to human dignity and feelings, some attempt made to restore confidence. A wise commander, recognizing the danger signals, would have made concessions but North was either blind to these or, if he had noticed, chose to ignore them. Far from relaxing the pressure, he seemed obstinately determined to increase it. His only answer was to punish with greater severity and the result was little short of disastrous.