In Northern Seas Read online

  In Northern Seas by Philip K. Allan

  Copyright © 2019 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: 978-1-950586-23-3(Paperback)

  ISBN :13: 978-1-950586-24-0(e-book)

  BISAC Subject Headings:

  FIC014000FICTION / Historical

  FIC032000FICTION / War & Military

  FIC047000FICTION / Sea Stories

  Cover Illustration by Christine Horner

  Edited by Chris Wozney

  Address all correspondence to:

  Penmore Press LLC

  920 N Javelina Pl

  Tucson, AZ 85748

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Cast of Main Characters

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Epilogue

  Note from the Author

  About The Author

  Advertisements

  Dedication

  To my dear brother, Fairley

  Acknowledgements

  Success as an author requires the support of many. My books start with my passion for the age of sail, which was first awakened when I discovered the works of C. S. Forester as a child, and later when I graduated to the novels of Patrick O’Brian. That interest was given some academic rigor when I studied the 18th century navy under Patricia 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 writer. I received the unconditional support and cheerful encouragement of my darling wife and two wonderful daughters. 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.

  One of the pleasures of my new career is the generous support and encouragement I continue to receive from my fellow writers. In theory we are in competition, but you would never know it. When I have needed help, advice and support, I have received it from David Donachie, Bernard Cornwell, Marc Liebman, Jeffrey K Walker, Helen Hollick, Ian Drury, Chris Durbin 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.

  Cast of Main Characters

  The crew of the frigate Griffin

  Alexander Clay—Captain RN

  George Taylor—1st Lieutenant

  John Blake —2nd Lieutenant

  Edward Preston—3rd Lieutenant

  Thomas Macpherson—Lieutenant of Marines

  Jacob Armstrong—Sailing Master

  Richard Corbett—Surgeon

  Charles Faulkner—Purser

  Nathaniel Hutchinson—Boatswain

  Able Sedgwick—Captain’s coxswain

  Sean O’Malley—Able seaman

  Adam Trevan—Able seaman

  Samuel Evans—Seaman

  William Ludlow—Landsman

  Also on board the Griffin

  Nicholas Vansittart—A diplomat

  Joshua Rankin—His valet

  Isaiah Hockley—A ship owner

  Sarah Hockley—His daughter

  In Paris

  Napoleon Bonaparte—First Consul

  Louis Alexandre Berthier—A general and Minister of War

  Charles Maurice de Talleyrand—Foreign Minister

  Pierre Alexandre Laurent Forfait—Minister for the Navy

  In Lower Staverton

  Lydia Clay—Wife of Alexander Clay

  Francis Clay—Their son

  In Copenhagen

  Count Andreas Bernstorff—Chief Minister

  Anders Holst—A naval captain

  William Drummond—British Ambassador to the Danish Court

  In St Petersburg

  Paul I —Tsar of Russia

  Grand Duke Alexander—His son and heir

  Levin von Bennigsen—A general

  Count Peter von Pahlen—Military Governor of St Petersburg

  Lord Charles Whitworth—British Ambassador to the Russian Court

  Others

  Earl George Spencer—First Lord of the Admiralty

  Sir Hyde Parker—Admiral in command of the Baltic Fleet

  Lord Horatio Nelson—His deputy

  Prologue

  The candle flames trembled as Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of France, slammed the flat of his hand down on the table.

  ‘No, gentlemen, it will not do!’ he exclaimed. ‘Glorious France, held at bay by a nation of shopkeepers? It is intolerable! There must be a way to defeat these damned English!’

  ‘But First Consul, we just cannot come at them,’ protested General Berthier, the curly-haired Minister of War. He pointed towards the huge map of Europe painted across one wall of the stateroom. ‘We have tried everything! We have built an armada of boats to invade across the Channel, sent men and arms to ferment rebellion in Ireland, even made an attack on Egypt to get at their possessions in India. But always we are thwarted by their damned ships.’

  ‘Alas, you have the truth of it, General,’ agreed Napoleon. ‘The moment the sea wets the boots of my soldiers, there I find them, waiting for me.’

  ‘How can the elephant fight with the whale?’ asked Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, leaning back in his chair and placing both manicured hands behind his head. ‘Is it not the most delicious of paradoxes, my friends? Socrates himself would have appreciated it.’ Napoleon pushed back a strand of hair that had fallen across his face, and turned his dark eyes on his Foreign Minister.

  ‘And might we trouble you for an answer to this paradox, monsieur?’ he asked, his voice dangerously low.

  ‘No, of course not, sir,’ smiled Talleyrand. ‘If it had an answer, it would no longer be a paradox.’

  ‘Have you been drinking again?’ demanded Berthier.

  ‘I have dined well, it is true,’ conceded the Foreign Minister, ‘but I am merely articulating the problem that we face. Our army crushes all opposition by land. Their navy does the same at sea. So I repeat, how can the elephant fight with the whale?’

  ‘If I could be master of the Channel for six hours, I would slay your whale quickly enough,’ growled Napoleon. ‘What solutions do you have to offer, Monsieur Forfait?’ All eyes turned towards the last man seated at the table. The Minister of the Navy blinked from behind his spectacles and cleared his throat.

  ‘We are building ships as quickly as we are able, First Consul, as you have ordered, but alas, the English fleet grows even swifter.’

  ‘Impossible!’ exclaimed Napoleon. ‘I have given you control of every shipyard from Venice to Amsterdam! How can they possibly be out-building us?’

  ‘Timber, labour, money we have, sir,’ explained Forfait. ‘What we lack is tar for our hulls, hemp for our rope and canvas for our sails, all of which must come in ships from the Baltic. As long as it is the English who control the sea, it is to their dockyards these supplies go.’

  ‘How splendid!’ enthused Talleyrand. ‘Surely we have yet another paradox? Because we have no supplies, we have no ships, and becaus
e we have no ships, we have no supplies!’ Napoleon rounded on his Foreign Minister, his face scarlet, but before he could vent his anger he felt a hand on his arm.

  ‘A moment, First Consul,’ urged Berthier. ‘I believe the minister may have just given us the solution.’

  ‘I have?’ said Talleyrand, sitting upright.

  ‘He has?’ queried Napoleon. ‘I am not sure that I follow you, General.’

  ‘Does the Foreign Minister’s paradox not work in reverse?’ explained the Minister for War. ‘If there are no supplies for the English, it will be they who cannot build or repair their ships, no? So if we can stop this Baltic trade from going to them, will we not have solved our problem?’

  ‘He is right, First Consul,’ said Talleyrand. ‘Clever Berthier! It is by suffocation that the elephant defeats the whale. While Forfait here builds our fleet, the English ships will founder for lack of tar, their torn sails un-mended, and they will have to choose between hanging their criminals or replacing their rigging. Conquer the Baltic, as you have conquered Italy, and you shall have your victory over the English.’

  ‘But, gentlemen, how am I to conquer the Baltic?’ protested Napoleon. ‘Think what you are asking! It would mean fighting Prussia, Russia, Demark and Sweden, all at the same time as England. France is not strong enough for such a war.’ The four men turned to stare at the wall above them and looked at where the countries he had listed crowded around the shores of that northern sea.

  ‘Very well, gentlemen,’ said Talleyrand. He pushed his chair back from the table. ‘If you men of blood cannot shut the Baltic to the English with your armies, I shall have to do it for you.’

  ‘And how will you achieve that, Foreign Minister?’ asked Napoleon. Talleyrand rose to his feet and placed a hand over his heart.

  ‘The enemy may have more ships, First Consul, but it is France that has the best diplomats.’

  Chapter 1

  Trials

  The great cabin of the Namur was ablaze with lanterns to combat the gloom. Autumn rain swept up the Solent, splattering against the row of glass windows at the back of the cabin, and making the big three-decker rock and fret at her moorings. The light fell on a long baize-covered table that ran in front of the windows and was strewn with books and documents. It glittered on the full dress uniforms of the officers, seven captains and an admiral, who sat in a row behind the table, and it caught in the seed pearls and gold that decorated a beautiful sword resting on the cloth in front of them.

  To one side of the table was a double row of chairs. Some of these were occupied by more junior naval officers in less elaborate uniforms, and one had been pulled a little apart from the rest. In it sat a well-dressed civilian from London in a pale blue coat and buff-coloured britches. He was of medium height and had the young face of a man in his mid-thirties, although his thinning hair made him appear older. He sat very upright with both his gloved hands resting on a silver-topped cane, intently watching proceedings.

  On the opposite side of the cabin was a single chair in which sat another naval post captain. He was a tall, lean man in his early thirties with curly chestnut hair and pale grey eyes that were fixed intently on the sword. Captain Alexander Clay was remembering the day that it had been promised to him. It had been two years ago, and he had just been presented to the king in Weymouth, after he had returned home with Admiral Nelson’s despatch on the Battle of the Nile. How things have changed, he thought to himself. Both of them had been riding high then. Now Nelson had been censured for his behaviour during the French occupation of Naples, and for the open affair he was having with another man’s wife. My situation is hardly better, reflected Clay. Here I sit, facing a court martial for the loss of my beloved frigate Titan. Is this where my brief career as a naval captain ends? His attention returned to proceedings as the admiral beckoned someone forward from amongst the witnesses. A solid-looking naval captain with a bald pate rose from his place and stood in front of the table.

  ‘Gentlemen, this is Captain West of the frigate Leda,’ explained the admiral to his fellow judges. ‘Would you be so kind as to tell the court how it was that you learned of the loss of His Majesty’s ship Titan, Captain?’

  ‘By all means, Sir Thomas,’ replied the officer. ‘The Leda was hove to off the Brittany coast, with Cape Penmarc’h bearing north three miles. At four bells in the afternoon watch, I was summoned on deck by a report that smoke had been sighted due east of us. Upon my word, I thought at first, a damned volcano had erupted, there was such a column rising apparently from out of the sea. I proceeded eastwards to investigate, and on approaching the Glenan Isles became aware that a large frigate had been beached and set on fire. By the time we reached the spot, there was precious little remaining of the ship, but signals were made to us to the effect that the crew were Royal Navy and in need of rescue.’

  ‘How was such a signal made, if the ship was destroyed?’ asked one of the judges, a portly captain with the ribbon and star of the Order of the Bath across his chest.

  ‘A naval ensign had been draped over a prominent cliff, and various signal rockets, Red Bengals and the like, were being fired off,’ explained West. ‘I sent in our boats and recovered Captain Clay and his men, some of whom were badly wounded, together with sundry items that had been brought off from their ship.’

  ‘And what did you then do, Captain West?’ asked the admiral.

  ‘From Captain Clay I learned that he had recently been in action with a ship of the line, close to the port of Quiberon, Sir Thomas. The wind being favourable, I thought it my duty to investigate further. The following morning the Leda approached Quiberon, where I found the French national ship Argonaute of 74 guns, moored in the harbour. She appeared to have considerable damage aloft, and had lost her foremast together with much of her bowsprit.’

  ‘Good show, by Jove,’ muttered one of the naval officers seated behind the table.

  ‘Having made that observation, I returned to rejoin the fleet and report,’ continued the witness.

  ‘Are there any questions for Captain West?’ asked the admiral, peering at his fellow judges over a pair of spectacles pinched onto the bridge of his nose. ‘No? Then the witness may stand down, and I shall summarise what the court has now learned. We have had testimony from all the officers of the Titan, whose accounts agree well with the ship’s log, and with Captain Clay’s written report. We have also heard of that frigate’s most unequal battle with a French ship of the line on the night of the tenth of August, subsequently identified as this Argonaute. We have learned of the handsome manner in which Captain Clay and his men fought their way clear, having sustained considerable damage and over a hundred casualties. Then we heard from her first lieutenant, Mr... eh... Mr Taylor, as to the desperate condition in which she found herself the following day, holed between wind and water, with both her pumps failed, and how she subsequently came to be beached. Perhaps we might now proceed to question Captain Clay on any points that remain unclear to the court?’

  Everything sounded so reasonable, thought Clay, as he rose from his seat and stood before the line of judges. From the admiral’s account, mere ill fortune had been behind the loss of the Titan. No mention of the warnings of betrayal he had received, but ignored. No hint that the encounter with the big French ship was not chance, but a well-sprung trap that he had failed to see coming. No mention of Major Douglas Fraser, who had fooled him with such ease, with dreadful consequences for his ship and crew. As he stood in his place Clay could sense that all eyes in the cabin were on him, but he found he was particularly conscious of the gaze of the civilian with the silver-headed cane. The portly captain who had spoken earlier was the first to ask a question.

  ‘I believe we all understand that there was an urgent need to beach the Titan when the second pump failed,’ he said. ‘But why did you feel obliged to set fire to your deuced ship, once she was safe?’

  ‘We had run ashore on a French island,’ said Clay. ‘In consequence I was fearful that she might
fall into the enemy’s hands. It was also the speediest way of signaling to Captain West and the Leda of our presence. I was mindful of my duty to the wounded. My surgeon was concerned as to their prospects if we were not promptly rescued.’ There was a mutter of approval from the line of captains at this, and several jotted down notes. Keep it simple, he urged himself. No need to speak of the release he had felt as the flames whooshed higher, seeming to burn away all trace of that night’s many mistakes.

  ‘Captain Clay, could you explain how exactly you came to be caught by this Argonaute?’ asked another of his judges. ‘Surely as a frigate, the Titan was the swifter vessel?’

  ‘They surprised us on a dark night, hard against the coast, sir,’ replied Clay. ‘We were only in such a false position because we were obliged to wait for the return of our ship’s boat, which was conducting a mission ashore—’ A cough sounded from behind Clay’s right shoulder. He glanced that way and saw the civilian from London looking significantly at the admiral.