The Distant Ocean Read online

  The Distant Ocean by Philip K. Allan

  Copyright © 2018 Philip K. Allan

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-946409-78-2(Paperback)

  ISBN :13: 978-1-946409-79-9(e-book)

  BISAC Subject Headings:

  FIC014000FICTION / Historical

  FIC032000FICTION / War & Military

  FIC047000FICTION / Sea Stories

  Editing: Chris Wozney

  Cover Illustration by Christine Horner

  Address all correspondence to:

  Penmore Press LLC

  920 N Javelina Pl

  Tucson, AZ 85748

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Chapter 1 Home

  Chapter 2 Departure

  Chapter 3 Freetown

  Chapter 4 Passe Partout

  Chapter 5 The Line

  Chapter 6 The Cape

  Chapter 7 Madagascar

  Chapter 8 Reunion

  Chapter 9 Washing

  Chapter 10 Flame and Smoke

  Chapter 11 Lost

  Chapter 12 Found

  Chapter 13 Return

  Chapter 14 Plan

  Chapter 15 The Trap

  Chapter 16 Battle

  Epilogue

  Note from The Author

  About the Author

  Advertisements

  Dedication

  To Lilian, a remarkable lady

  Acknowledgements

  In writing the Alexander Clay series I have enjoyed the support of many who have helped to bring my vision to the page. These books start with a passion for the Age of Sail. Mine was first awakened when I discovered the works of C. S. Forester as a child. Later I graduated to the novels of Patrick O’Brian, and the research of Nick Rodger. That interest was given some academic rigor when I studied the 18th century navy under Pat Crimmin as part of my history degree at London University.

  Many years later I decided to leave my career in the motor industry to see if I could survive as a novelist. I received the unconditional support, acceptance of the belt-tightening required, and cheerful encouragement of my darling wife and two wonderful daughters. I strive to find a balance in my writing that will satisfy those with knowledge of the period, while still being an enjoyable read for those with none. I first test my work to see if I have hit the mark with my family, and especially my wife Jan, whose input is invaluable. I have also been helped again by my dear friend Peter Northen.

  Writers are, on the whole, a welcoming church to late converts like me. One of the most unexpected pleasures of my new career is to have experienced their generous support and encouragement. When I needed help, advice and support, I received it from David Donachie, Bernard Cornwell, Marc Liebman, Jeffrey K Walker, Helen Hollick, Ian Drury and in particular Alaric Bond, creator of the Fighting Sail series of books.

  Finally my thanks go to the team at Penmore Press, Michael, Chris, Terri and Christine, who work so hard to turn the world I have created into the book you hold in your hand.

  Prologue

  ‘Stand clear there!’ roared Captain Barrington, as the main mast of the General Cornwallis groaned ominously. A series of sharp cracks sounded overhead, like a volley of muskets, as the shrouds holding the mast snapped under the strain. Ropes whipped and hissed through the air and the main deck grew dark as the tropical sun was masked by spars and canvas. The hundred-and-fifty-foot structure leant heavily to one side, held for a moment, then fell in a torrent, thundering down across the ship and into the sea along side. The East Indiaman dragged to a halt and lay rocking on the swell like an exhausted stag, waiting for the approach of the hunter who would finish her.

  Barrington looked around at the devastated ship and knew in his heart that the battle was over. The quarterdeck canon nearest to him lay on its side. The last of its gun crew was being pulled away by another sailor, his wounded leg leaving a brush stroke of crimson on the planking. From down on the main deck the clank of the pumps had resumed as they struggled to keep pace with the flooding in the hold. So many of his crew were dead and wounded, he barely had enough men to serve the guns that were still operable, certainly not enough to repel any attempt to board.

  ‘I fear we must strike our colours, Mr Harris,’ he said. ‘The men have done all that can be expected of them.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ said his first lieutenant, wiping the sweat from his face on the torn sleeve of his jacket. ‘They fought well. Who would have imagined that a crew of Lascars and Malays could have held out so long against the French?’

  ‘Aye, and the General hit them hard in our turn,’ said his captain. He pointed towards the French frigate as she slid through the blue water towards them. Her towering pyramids of sail were pockmarked with shot holes, her sides blackened with powder smoke. Gathered along her rail was her crew, ready to board their helpless victim. The hot sun twinkled and flashed back from the steel of their weapons.

  ‘Oh damn and blast it!’ cursed Barrington, thumping the rail with his fist. ‘Madagascar pirates I can deal with, but a national ship of France? How does such a vessel come to be in the Indian Ocean?’

  ‘I suppose they must have come from one of the islands they possess, sir,’ said Harris. ‘Ille de France lies only a few hundred miles to the north, and Reunion is but a little farther off.’

  ‘And where, pray, was our glorious navy to protect us, eh?’ exclaimed the captain. ‘A whole cargo of best Canton silk and the first of this year’s indigo crop, all of it lost to those blackguards.’

  ‘They are nearly upon us, sir,’ said the lieutenant. ‘Shall I haul down the colours?’

  ‘Yes, carry on, George,’ said Barrington. Harris gave the order, and the red and white striped flag of the East India Company drifted down to sag onto the deck beside them. A muffled cheer came from across the water.

  ‘I’ve half a mind to slip down to the magazine with a loaded pistol,’ muttered the captain. ‘See if the blighters want to huzzah when I blow them and the General straight to hell.’ But he remained at his post while the frigate swept alongside. Grappling hooks flew through the air to catch in what was left of the General Cornwallis’s rigging, and a cheering mob of French sailors swarmed over the bulwark and jumped down onto the deck. The officer that led the rush made his way up towards the quarterdeck, backed by a number of cutlass-wielding seamen. He saw the two Englishmen and came across to them. When he drew close they noticed how young he seemed, at best a few years out of his teens. He had a lean, handsome face with tanned skin and a tiny line of moustache visible over his smile.

  ‘Rupert Barrington of the Honourable East India Company, at your service,’ growled the captain. ‘I am in command of this ship.’ He glared at his young victor for a moment, then bowed his head to him. ‘Please permit me to name Mr Harris, my first lieutenant. Regrettably, my other officers are all below deck under the care of the surgeon.’

  ‘No matter, monsieur,’ said the young man, making an elaborate bow. ‘I am Enseigne de Vaisseau Claude Chavency of the frigate Prudence. Please, may I prevail on you to give me your swords, gentlemen?’ The two officers unbuckled their belts and handed their weapons across. Chavency accepted them with a smile and passed them back to one of his men.

  ‘We were taken aback to find a ship of your size so far from France, monsieur,’ said Barrington. ‘Are you newly arrived in these waters?’

  ‘Indeed so, captain,’ said the Frenchman. ‘You are the first ship we have engaged. May I say how delighted I am to hear of your surpr
ise? For once it would seem our navy has managed to keep a deployment from your many spies. There are three of our frigates in these waters now. Soon none of your ships will dare attempt to cross this ocean.

  Chapter 1 Home

  ‘God, I hate this journey,’ muttered Earl Spencer, First Lord of the Admiralty, glaring out of the carriage window at the green hills of south Dorset. The road was lined by lush hedgerows, over the top of which could be seen a flock of sheep as they grazed in the warm sunshine. The carriage rolled down a slope and rattled across a stone bridge that spanned a stream lined with alder and willow. By the edge of the water stood a shepherd boy in a wide hat, leaning on his crook as he watched his animals drink. ‘I dare say we will be made to sup on mutton this evening,’ continued Spencer. ‘It’s all that is to be had in this arse-end of the world.’

  ‘For my part it will still make a welcome change from pork twelve months in the cask, my lord,’ said Captain Alexander Clay. ‘But why is it that his Majesty favours Weymouth so much?’

  ‘That is all the fault of his damned sawbones,’ exclaimed the First Lord. ‘According to the court physician, fresh air and a daily immersion in the sea will control his malady. I ask you! If salt water were a cure for lunacy there would be no mad sailors, and we both know that ain’t the case, what?’

  ‘Has his treatment proved efficacious, my lord?’

  Spencer turned an eye on the young naval captain.

  ‘You mean, is he sane?’ he said. ‘I believe that he is currently lucid, although I would certainly have run mad if I was required to spend the whole summer this far from Piccadilly. Never mind how his poor ministers are inconvenienced, having to trail down from London to conduct the business of the nation.’

  The Earl sat back in disgust and watched his travelling companion from the opposite corner of the carriage. He is a handsome devil, no doubt about that, he thought to himself, taking in the tall frame, tanned face and head of curly brown hair. A pair of calm grey eyes looked back at him. Spencer’s gaze shifted to the naval captain’s uniform and rested briefly on the single gold epaulet that he wore. Less than three years seniority, no connections of any note to prefer him, and yet this is the man that young Nelson chose to honour with carrying home his victory despatch, he mused. There is more to you than meets the eye, Alexander Clay.

  ‘The news of Lord Nelson’s victory came at just the right time, you know,’ he said. ‘What with rebellion in Ireland, and all these damned Jacobins at home stirring up the mob. We had heard so little from the Mediterranean that the Cabinet were quite resolved the French had given him the slip and would be shortly sailing up the Channel to invade us. They say that Pitt fell down insensible when he was told of the battle. Mind, the Prime Minister finding himself out cold upon the carpet is passing common, once he starts on the port. They don’t call him Three Bottle Bill for nothing, what?’

  ‘I am pleased to have been the bearer of such glad tidings, my lord.’

  ‘The chief thing now is for us to make the most of the situation,’ remarked Spencer. ‘There is nothing like a victory to calm the mob, and God knows we have had precious few of those. Yes, much can be achieved on this tide of popularity. Pitt can proceed with that new tax of his, for instance.’

  ‘What tax would that be, my lord?’ asked Clay. His companion looked cunning.

  ‘He believes he has found a way to tax incomes,’ he said. ‘Extraordinary, ain’t it? I didn’t think it would be possible to pry into a man’s affairs to such a degree, but he says he can make it answer.’

  Clay sat back in his seat and looked out of the window on his side of the coach. He thought back to the desperate sea battle he had been through in the heat of an Egyptian night. He could see in his mind the brilliant flash of broadsides as they had roared to and fro between the rival fleets. He felt again the dreadful furnace heat of the fire and explosion that had destroyed the French flagship. He pictured once more the death and destruction his crew and ship had suffered, and he remembered how he had stood, utterly exhausted, looking out on the calm grey water at dawn to find it dotted with hundreds of bodies drifting amongst the shattered wreckage. Had all that been done to help politicians like Spencer and Pitt pacify the mob?

  ‘Ah, I believe we may be near, at last,’ said Spencer. ‘About bloody time, what?’

  Clay returned to the stuffy interior of the carriage and realised that the horses had been slowing for some time as they drew close to the top of the final rise. Now, in place of sheep and hills, he could see below him the long spit of Portland Bill stretching out into the waters of the Channel. In the bay was a scattering of little fishing boats with brown ketch sails. Farther out at sea was a convoy of merchant ships, heading westwards towards the Atlantic, under the watchful eye of an escorting warship. The coach rattled forwards and gathered pace down the hill towards the little town of Weymouth.

  *****

  ‘Pray place your hat under your arm, sir, and remember that under no circumstances should you permit the King to have sight of your back,’ said the Lord Chamberlain to the young captain.

  ‘Yes, yes, Thomas,’ growled Spencer. ‘Don’t fuss, man! Captain Clay understands perfectly well how to behave. We’re not the damned Army, you know.’ The chamberlain cast a last look over the two men and then led them towards the double doors. Footmen in powdered wigs pushed them open and the group walked into a large, sparsely furnished room with windows on two sides that looked out into a sunlit garden.

  Ahead of them sat a portly man in a gilt-framed chair, with a half circle of courtiers stood at his back. On his head was a grey horsehair periwig, beneath which a pair of bulging, pale blue eyes looked towards them. He wore a scarlet military-style coat over a white waistcoat and britches, with the blue ribbon of the garter stretched diagonally across him. My, thought Clay, but he looks exactly like Gillray’s cartoons in the broadsheets.

  ‘His Lordship the Earl Spencer and Captain Clay,’ yelled the chamberlain at the seated figure, as if he were somewhere deep in the garden, rather than eight yards away. Then he bowed and withdrew to one side.

  ‘Lord Spencer, so good of you to oblige me with a visit to Weymouth,’ said the king.

  ‘Always a pleasure, your Majesty,’ said the First Lord of the Admiralty. He bowed low, and when he came up he beckoned his companion forward. ‘May I present Captain Alexander Clay? Captain Clay was the officer who brought the welcome news of the triumph of your Majesty’s fleet at the Battle of the Nile.’ Clay bowed low in his turn, and when he stood upright again he found that the pale eyes were upon him.

  ‘Were you present at the actual battle, captain?’ asked the monarch.

  ‘I was indeed, your Majesty. I command your frigate Titan. It was our honour to lead the fleet into the bay through some troublesome shoals, although the credit for that feat properly belongs to my sailing master, Mr Jacob Armstrong.’

  ‘Handsomely said, captain. And did your ship suffer much?’

  ‘Not as badly as some, your Majesty. We had seventy killed and wounded from a complement of two-hundred and forty-nine. The Titan is currently at Portsmouth undergoing a refit.’

  The king meditated on this for a moment, before a fresh question occurred to him. ‘And how was… was… eh, what’s his name, when you left him?’ he asked.

  ‘Your Majesty?’

  ‘Oh, you must know whom I mean!’ exclaimed the monarch. ‘The cove who sounds like a farmer. He can never cease from chattering away.’ Clay looked for inspiration from the men grouped behind the throne. Several of them placed hands over one eye, and some made an arm disappear behind their backs.

  ‘Might your Majesty be referring to Sir Horatio Nelson, Lord Nelson as he is now?’

  ‘The very same! How is he?’

  ‘He was wounded in the action, your Majesty.’

  ‘What, again? Upon my word, there will be nothing left of the fellow soon!’

  ‘He was not too grievously injured on this occasion, your Majesty,’ said Clay
. ‘When I left Naples he was convalescing in the house of Sir William Hamilton. Lady Hamilton was being most attentive to his needs.’ A choked snort from behind the throne petered out as the King glanced behind him.

  ‘Now, Lord Spencer, how do you believe I should reward this brave officer for his service to me?’

  ‘You have commanded that all of Lord Nelson’s captains should receive a gold medal, your Majesty,’ said Spencer. ‘The design has been completed, and the Corporation of London is to match your largess with medals for every man present at the battle.’

  ‘Pish! That will hardly answer. What sort of distinction can it be if everyone is to get them?’ said the King. ‘How is it normal for us to mark such an occasion?’

  ‘It is customary to promote the bearer of such tidings, Your Majesty, but as you can see, Captain Clay is already a post captain. By the long custom of the service, his next step to admiral can only come through seniority.’

  ‘By which time he will doubtless be in his dotage,’ said the King. ‘Ah, I have it! Have you been knighted, captain?’

  ‘I have not had that honour, your Majesty,’ said Clay, a little dazed.

  ‘Does he deserve such a reward, Spencer?’

  ‘Captain Clay is undoubtedly a fine young officer, your Majesty, but a knighthood is normally reserved for an exceptional display of gallantry,’ said the First Sea Lord. ‘It might be thought to devalue the honour if it were to be given for merely carrying a letter.’