A War by Diplomacy Read online

  “Of course not. Do you remember how, at the reception where we met Sir Walcott, you went off with Sir David to huddle in a corner about something and left me with him.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I had already sized up his character, and was pretty sure that if you had nice furniture and he did not, he would make life so miserable for you that you would give him your own quarters.”

  “I suppose I might have done so, or even offered my cabin from the start.”

  “I didn’t want that. So I took the opportunity to tell Sir Walcott how plain would be the standard fittings of a frigate. Not at all suitable for an important ambassador to Russia. He could not be sure that he might not have to entertain important Russian officials, even possibly the Tsar himself. Well, that got him into a most anxious state; especially as I knew that, in the past, you had always been content with the boatyard-supplied furnishings. I told him that I did know who supplied elegant furniture for captain’s cabins and gave him their name and address. I was pretty sure that his self-esteem would make him decide to furnish his cabin. I even told him that I knew that the plans for Glaucus would have been provided to the shop. I just didn’t say that I knew it because I was delivering them myself. I guess he must have taken my hints.”

  “Thank you very much. I am sure it would have been very awkward to have Sir Walcott housed with anything but the best furniture. But I am afraid that his taste is not such that I will buy it from him at the end of the voyage.”

  “You will be interested to hear,” Mr. Stewart resumed, “that both your orders from Fortnum and Mason’s have arrived.”

  “Both?” Giles questioned.

  “Yes,” replied Mr. Stewart with a smile. “There is one from you, Captain Giles, and one from Lady Giles.”

  Giles was not about to let on that he had already known about Daphne’s visit to the shop. “I had no idea that your mysterious shopping expedition would include Fortnum and Mason’s. What a delightful surprise! We will certainly be very well supplied for our short cruise. Thank you very much, Daphne!”

  “On a more serious note, Captain Giles,” resumed Mr. Stewart. “I should point out a couple of different features in this part of the ship. Mr. Hughes, from the Ordinance Board, suggested them. He thinks that stern guns should be more powerful than the usual pop-guns mounted at the taffrail*, partly as better weapons in themselves, and also as a discouragement and diversion against ships that are positioning themselves to rake your stern.”

  “Oh?”

  “The first is the stern windows. I have made them removable so that they can be struck below* when you clear for action. If you have the misfortune of an enemy firing into your stern, that might limit the damage because there will be fewer pieces of glass and splinters flying about.”

  “That strikes me as a very good idea. And the other changes?”

  “The windows can then serve as gun ports.”

  “What? Surely I am not supposed to share my space with another couple of enormous cannon. Having some of the broadside guns in my space is more than enough.”

  “There would be no more guns in the cabin, Captain Giles. If you look at the ceiling, you will see several dead bolts. You can’t observe it, but their backing has been strengthened relative to what you might expect, so they can take the weight of a gun. Mr. Hughes has devised a very clever system of slings and tackles, so the existing guns can be repositioned as stern chasers if the need arises, and the stern has been reinforced to take the recoil. He tried it out with some of your crew and found it to be perfectly feasible, at least as far as moving them; he couldn’t fire them through the windows of course. Shifting the guns all took almost thirty minutes, but he is sure that time can be shortened with practice.”

  “This wasn’t part of the original design, was it, Mr. Stuart?”

  “No, sir. Mr. Hughes only suggested it when he heard that you have been given Glaucus. He said you were the only captain who would be willing to explore the capabilities of his design. I confess that Daniel was very enthusiastic about the idea also. He said that the heavy bow chasers in Petroclus had played a significant role in her success – and in the prize money he got.”

  “What did the Admiralty inspectors say about this change?”

  “They did not notice them, I am afraid.”

  “Are they paying for them as an extra?”

  “No. The expense will be borne by me. Daniel will be sailing with you and anything that might make him a bit safer has my full backing.”

  “That is very generous of you, Mr. Stuart. I will be eager to try them out as soon as possible. Now, let’s get on with my inspection so I can accept the ship.”

  Chapter VIII

  Daphne stood at Glaucus’s taffrail as the day was fading. There was a light wind and the sea was barely ruffled so Glaucus glided along with hardly any pitching or rolling. The weather was sufficiently mild that she had left her boat cloak in the cabin, but she suspected that she would need it by morning. Giles had arranged for Daphne and Betsy to go ashore in Portsmouth while he was loading the guns and ammunition so that they could obtain some clothes more suitable for a sea voyage than the ones they had brought on the trip.

  It had been a varied three days since they left Butler’s Hard. They had slipped down the river peacefully, with slowly changing vistas opening up on either side, as Glaucus was towed and sailed down the river. Then there had been bustling times in Portsmouth as the ship’s guns and supplies were loaded. Daphne was amazed at how smoothly the sailors worked and the way in which they used pulleys and ropes to make it possible for groups of them to manage huge loads. Daphne was no stranger to seeing hard work done, but there were no horses or oxen on the ship to aid with the heavy tasks, just teams of men. They had funny terms for everything too. A pulley was a block, a rope was a line, and “Avast” was the order to stop. After two days of loading, they had sailed out of Portsmouth and through Spithead on the way to the English Channel. They were well out to sea as night fell.

  The following day had been marked by constant drills with the sails and the guns as Richard and his lieutenants were learning the ways of the ship. Daphne had spent most of the time in a chair that Richard had installed for her on the quarterdeck, since their cabin had been made unusable as the crew practiced shifting the guns in the stern cabin again and again until Richard was satisfied that the changes could be performed quickly in battle. She had had a book with her that she had bought in London, but most of her time had been spent admiring the incredible dance that was performed by the crew as they performed their tasks, some high above her in the rigging, others in well-coordinated movements of the heavy cannon taking all the steps necessary to use them efficiently. She had been thrilled as the final parts of the gun drills were accomplished with the cannon firing with real powder and shot, and the evident fun that the crews had when finally getting to use the results of their practice to produce loud noises.

  Betsy sat on a coil of rope behind Daphne looking very uncomfortable with the ship’s motions. She seemed to be thinking that she would have been better to have taken the carriage back to Dipton and then met Daphne at Chatham. Her misery was only slightly relieved by the sailors who tried to flirt surreptitiously with her when they thought no one was looking. One crew member seemed to have raised her interest when he was helping her to stow their luggage and to make a corner of the deck near the petty officers’ quarters private for her. He was a redheaded, confident, cheerful carpenter’s mate called Russell. The carpenter’s wife, when he introduced Betsy to her as someone to ask about the details of living on a ship, had indicated that he would make someone a good catch as she was showing her how to attend to the more delicate matters of everyday life. Nevertheless, Russell failed completely to raise a smile when he happened to pass where she was sitting to make some cheerful comments, even though he seemed to pass by her a large number of times.

  Daphne’s reading and her reveries had been frequently interrupted by the office
rs stopping by to chat. She was quite amused to find that the midshipmen were awed by her presence, terribly awkward in talking to the captain’s wife, sometimes almost tongue-tied and at other times spouting out miscellaneous information in bursts. It was evident that they all suffered from a bad case of hero-worship when it came to her husband. She had been charmed herself when she overheard two of them, who did not realize that she might hear them, express complete admiration that their hero had the most beautiful and lively of women as his wife. Richard regularly stopped by where she was sitting under some shade, which some sailors had ingeniously rigged to protect Betsy and her from the sun without obstructing her view, partly to apologize that he did not have more time for her and partly to explain the baffling steps involved in the work. He admitted that he had not really thought through the details of the first few days on a new ship and how busy and distracted he would be when he asked her to join him on the voyage to Chatham, but it was very evident that he himself was delighted to have her on board. Remembering that for her the biggest pleasures of the trip so far had come from sleeping in his hanging bed, she could only say that she was delighted that he had asked her on the voyage without going into what its highlight had been so far. The first night had started with him hanging a separate hammock in the cabin, saying that the hanging bed was too narrow to be comfortable for two, but somehow she had got him to relent. It had been crowded but not unpleasant! She wasn’t even embarrassed when Betsy entered in the morning and saw the nature of her sleeping arrangements.

  Her reflections were interrupted by Mr. Brooks, the master. He came to the taffrail and stared towards the sunset.

  “I am afraid we will have a bit more wind, by morning, my lady,” he announced as he turned around to face forward.

  “Will it become rough?” Daphne asked.

  “Not very, only a little more heel than we have now and more motion. Are you a good sailor?”

  “I don’t know. This is my first time on a ship.”

  “Is it? You have adjusted very well, if I may say so. Hopefully there will not be enough motion to bother you.” Mr. Brooks seemed to be oblivious to poor Betsy who was clearly not a good sailor.

  They were joined by Giles.

  “Daphne, I hope that Mr. Brooks has not been alarming you.”

  “Quite the contrary, Richard. He has been trying to alleviate any fears I might have about the Glaucus rolling or pitching more. See, I have already learned some nautical terms.”

  “So you have! Soon you will be speaking naval English as well as French. Well, I don’t think the wind will become serious, but Mr. Brooks is a better judge of weather than I am. I think we should have supper now, if you are ready. We will have to be up before dawn, you know, so that the crew can clear for action. It is our usual custom and it will be especially necessary with the crew still becoming used to Glaucus. Let’s go below where the table is laid.”

  Next morning, Daphne was on the quarterdeck* with Giles well before dawn. The wind was from the east, kicking up white caps that could be seen even in the dark. The wind was coming over the right side of the ship, but she supposed that she should get used to thinking of it as the starboard side. Noises and rumblings below her feet indicated that the cabin was being dismantled and the guns moved to their unusual positions as stern chasers. Her boat cloak kept her warm and she clutched a steaming mug of tea, which Giles’s servant had prepared for her. The stars were fading and there was a definite glow in the east when a lookout called. “Land ho. Ahead and to larboard. Five miles.”

  “This should be Pavensey Bay, with Hastings ahead and a bit to starboard,” Mr. Brooks announced. “We should come about soon, sir.”

  Before Giles could issue the command, another hail interrupted him.

  “Ship ho! Three points off the larboard bow! Half a mile.” Giles peered off to larboard. There was, indeed, a ship to larboard of Glaucus, closing with them on the larboard tack. In the rapidly increasing light she appeared to be a frigate, with her gun ports closed, and not picked out with special decoration. Probably also a thirty-six, like Glaucus. She seemed to be flying no flag, at least not one that could be seen in this light.

  “Mr. Dunsmuir, raise the private signal and our number.”

  The signals rose promptly on their halyards, while the officers on the quarterdeck stared at the unknown vessel waiting for the response from the stranger.

  “No reply, sir.” Mr. Dunsmuir announced unnecessarily. “But look, sir, she has just broken out the French flag.”

  “Furl the top-gallant sails,” called Giles as a first step to engaging the enemy.

  “I see no signs that she is about to reduce sails to go into battle, sir, I think she is hoping to slip past us and get away,” remarked the master.

  “Belay* that order. Quite right, we’ll pass ahead of her, Mr. Brooks, and then come about to engage her on our starboard side,” Giles informed the Master. “I wonder why she doesn’t want to engage.” Then he twisted towards the bow and bellowed, “Stand by the larboard guns. Fire as you bear. Then reload and secure the guns. Carstairs, escort Lady Giles to the orlop* immediately!”

  The other ship had its own ideas about how the encounter should proceed. Just before Glaucus was to cross her bows, she turned off the wind obviously intending to avoid presenting her bow at close range to Glaucus’s guns and hoping that, as she turned, her own broadside would get in a strong blow against her opponent. Giles thought that he had a surprise in store for the enemy. “Standby to come about,” he roared. Then, with hardly a moment’s pause, counting on his well-trained crew’s being already for the order, “Helm alee*.” Immediately the reply came from the quartermaster, “Helm’s alee, sir”

  Even as Glaucus started to turn, the bow chasers of her opponent opened fire with her starboard gun being the first to get off her shot. The ball, probably only a nine-pounder, did not reach Glaucus. The next couple of shots from her larboard bow-chaser had the same fate as the balls sank without reaching Giles’s ship. Glaucus’s broadside began to bear and fired at the enemy. Then it was her own turn to receive unanswered shots as the turning enemy’s guns bore on the frigate.

  “Stand by to come about. Stand by the stern guns” was Giles’s next order. “Single shot and double charge the guns. Fire as you bear. Mr. Brooks, bring us about.”

  Almost immediately the four aft-most guns, now positioned to fire through the window openings that were serving as makeshift gun-ports, roared out. All of them struck the enemy, three of them whistling in to wreak havoc on her deck with one gun upended and wood splinters from other hits sweeping across to wound many of her crewmembers. The fourth ball thumped into the mizzenmast, spraying deadly splinters all over. Possibly, because of the dangerous excess of powder that Giles had ordered, the shot had enough strength to damage the enemy’s mast so that it cracked and then started to fall to starboard. With Glaucus now turning rapidly to starboard and with the loss of the opposing ship’s sails, the remainder of her broadside missed Glaucus. The English frigate continued to turn and now her starboard guns bore on the enemy. Her broadside rippled out and so did the next one until the continuing turn left the guns no target, while she was once more in range of the enemy’s cannon. Their next broadside again swept Glaucus with splinters, but did no other damage to the guns and the rigging. Glaucus's bow chasers next fired, wreaking more havoc, and then her turn brought the larboard guns into play. Some of the opposing frigate’s guns were still in range, but that soon ceased to be the case as Glaucus continued to advance so that she could take up station on her opponent’s quarter. Now she could fire into the French ship with impunity. Some of the additional damage she had caused to the French ship’s rigging meant that the enemy still could not maneuver effectively even though she had cleared away the wreckage of the mizzenmast. In this position, Giles could reduce his rival to matchwood if the fight continued.

  “She’s struck,” Midshipman Stewart roared. His job had been to watch for the first signs of the
French surrendering.

  ‘Cease fire.” ordered Giles. “Mr. Hendricks, Mr. Macauley, take possession of the frigate. Take Mr. Miller and Mr. Dunsmuir with you. Send their officers here when you have accepted their surrender. Then evaluate the damage and report to me, Mr. Hendricks. Mr. Macauley secure the French crew using your marines. Carstairs, take my barge and search for anyone knocked overboard, especially from the Frenchman. Check all the wreckage in the water. Mr. Fisher, go to the orlop and tell Lady Giles that it is safe to return on deck. Mr. Correll, you can start restoring the ship to its usual state after the bosun, the carpenter and the gunner have assessed the damage.”

  Giles turned to survey the damage to Glaucus. It seemed to be mainly cosmetic in the sense of wood that had splintered as a result of being hit. The carpenter would be busy, but none of the damage was a threat to the ship. He couldn’t help wonder how much injury the splinters had caused. Probably a great deal since Dr. Maclean had yet to report. Aloft, they had been lucky. There were numerous holes in the sails that he had not been able to furl until the battle was over, and many lines had been severed, but nothing that could not be quickly and easily repaired. Glaucus could proceed as soon as she had determined that the captured ship was seaworthy and could navigate under her own sails. He probably should send her into Chatham rather than Portsmouth, since it would take about as long either way and he was going to Chatham where he would be able to pick up his prize crew immediately. That destination might also help in making sure that Glaucus got the proper credit and prize money. He might even accompany her there, if she was not too much slowed by the damage she had sustained.

  He felt a surge of relief followed by anxiety as Daphne appeared on deck. He had been worried about her, even though she should have been perfectly safe in the orlop. Here she was, but looking very disheveled. Her dress was bloodstained, and there was blood on her face. The hem of her petticoat was showing, looking like it had been ripped somehow.