An Eye of the Fleet

eyes did not recognise the lines of transports.

It was a powerful fleet; a great effort by Britain to avert the threat to her West Indian possessions and succour the ailing ships on the North American station. For two years since the surrender of Burgoyne's army Britain had been trying to bring the wily Washington to battle while simultaneously holding off the increasing combination of European enemies from snapping up distant colonies when her attention was occupied elsewhere.

That this effort had been further strained by the corruption, peculation and plain jobbery that infected public life in general and Lord Sandwich's navy in particular was not a matter to concern Drinkwater for grander spectacles were before him. As the gig drew close to the massive side of Sandwich Captain Hope drew the attention of Morris to something. The midshipman turned the boat head to sea.

'Oars!' he ordered and the blades rose dripping to the horizontal.

Drinkwater looked round for some reason for this cessation of activity. There was none as far as he could see. Looking again at Sandwich he noted a flurry about her decks.

Glittering officers in blue and white, pointed polished telescopes astern, in the direction of Portsmouth. Drinkwater could just see the crowns of the marines' black hats as they fell in. Then a drum rolled and the black specks were topped by a line of silver bayonets as the marines shouldered arms. A pipe shrilled out and all activity aboard Sandwich ceased. The great ship seemed to wait expectantly as a small black ball rose to the truck of her mainmast.

Then round her stern and into view from Cyclops's gig swept an admiral's barge. At its bow fluttered the red cross of St George. The oarsmen bent to their task with unanimous precision, their red and white striped shirts moving in unison, their heads crowned by black beavers. A small dapper midshipman stood upright in the stern, hand on tiller. His uniform was immaculate, his hat set at a rakish angle. Drinkwater stared down at his own crumpled coat and badly cobbled trousers; he felt distinctly uncomfortable.

Also in the stem of the barge sat an old-looking man wrapped in a boat cloak. The lasting impression made on Drinkwater was a thin, hard mouth, then the barge was alongside Sandwich and Admiral Sir George Brydges Rodney was ascending the side of his flagship. A squeal of pipes, a roll of drums and a twinkle of light as the bayonets flashed to the present; at the main masthead the black ball broke out and revealed itself as the red cross of St George. At this sight the guns of the fleet roared out in salute.

Admiral Rodney had arrived to take command of the fleet.

A few minutes later Drinkwater hurled his grapnel at Sandwich's mainchains. By good fortune it held first time and, to indifferent ceremonial, Captain Hope reported to his superior.

Chapter Two The Danish Brig

January 1780

On New Year's Day, 1780, Rodney's armada was at sea. In addition to the scouting frigates and twenty-one line of battleships no less than three hundred merchantmen cleared the Channel that chill morning. In accordance with her instructions Cyclops was part of the escort attending the transports and so took no part in the action of 8th January.

A Spanish squadron of four frigates, two corvettes and the 64-gun ship Guipuscoano was encountered off Cape Finisterre with a convoy of fifteen merchantmen. The entire force was surrounded and taken. Prize crews were put on board and the captured vessels escorted back to England by the Guipuscoano, renamed Prince William in honour of the Duke of Clarence then a midshipman with the fleet. The captured vessels which contained victuals were retained to augment the supplies destined for Gibraltar.

As the concourse of ships plodded its slow way down the Iberian coast on the afternoon of the 15th, Drinkwater sat in the foretop of the Cyclops. It was his action station and he had come to regard it as something of his own domain, guarded as it was by its musket rests and a small swivel gun. Here he was free of the rank taint between decks, the bullying senselessness of Morris and here too, in the dog watches, he was able to learn some of the finer points of the seaman's art from an able seaman named Tregembo.

Young Nathaniel was quick to learn and impressed most of his superiors with his eager enthusiasm to attempt any task. But on this afternoon he was enjoying a rest, soaking up the unaccustomed luxury of January sunshine. It seemed impossible that only a couple of months previously he had known nothing of this life. So packed with events and impressions had the period been that it seemed another lifetime in which he had bid his widowed mother and younger brother farewell. Now, he reflected with the beginnings of pride, he was part of the complex organisation that made Cyclops a man o'war.

Drinkwater gazed over the ship which creaked below him. He saw Captain Hope as an old, remote figure in stark contrast to his first lieutenant. The Honourable John Devaux was the third son of an earl, an aristocrat to his fingertips, albeit an impoverished one, and a Whig to boot. He and Hope were political opponents and Devaux's haughty youth annoyed the captain. Henry Hope had been too long in the service to let it show too frequently since Devaux, with influence, was not to be antagonised. In truth, the younger man's competence was never in doubt. Unlike many of his class he had taken an interest in the business of naval war which was motivated by more than an instinct for survival. Had his politics been different or the government Whig he might have been in Hope's shoes and Hope in his. It was a fact both had the intelligence to acknowledge and though friction was never far from the surface it was always veiled.

As for Cyclops herself she had shaken down as well as any ship manned under the system of the press. Her crew had exercised at the great guns under their divisional officers and her signalling system had been sorely strained trying to maintain order amongst the unruly merchantmen but, by and large both captain and first lieutenant agreed, she would do. Hope had no illusions about glory so fanaticism was absent from his character. If his officers were able and his crew willing, he asked no more of them.

To Nathaniel Drinkwater dozing in his top Cyclops had become his only real world. His doubts had begun to evaporate under the influence of a change in the weather and youthful adaptability. He was slowly learning that the midshipmen's berth was an environment in which it was just possible to exist. Although he loathed Morris and disliked several of the older members of his mess, the majority were pleasant enough boys. They got on well together bearing Morris's bullying with fortitude and commiserating in their hatred of him.

Drinkwater regarded Lieutenant Devaux with awe and the old sailing master, Blackmore, whose duties included the instruction of the midshipmen in the rudiments of navigation, with the respect he might have felt for his father had the latter been living. The nearest he came to friendship was with the topman Tregembo who handled the foretop swivel gun in action. He proved an endless source of wisdom and information about the frigate and her minutiae. A Cornishman of uncertain age he had been caught with a dubious cargo in the fish-well of his father's lugger off the Lizard by a revenue cutter. His father had offered the officers armed resistance and been hanged for his pains. As an act of clemency his son was given a lighter sentence which, the justices assured the court, would mitigate the grief felt by the wife of the dastardly smuggler: impressment. Tregembo had hardly stepped ashore since.

Drinkwater smiled to himself feeling, up here in his little kingdom, the self-satisfaction of youth seeping through him. Below on deck one bell rang through the ship. He was on watch in fifteen minutes. He rose and looked up.

Above him the topmast met the topgallant and at the upper hounds sat the lookout. A mood of devilment seized him; he would ascend to the hounds and from there slide down the backstay to the deck. The long descent would be an impressive demonstration of his proficiency as a seaman. He began to climb.

Casting his leg over the topgallant yard he joined the man on lookout. Far below him Cyclops rolled gently. His view of the deck was broken by the bellying sails and lent perspective by the diminishing rigging, each rope leading down to its respective belaying pin or eyebolt.

The seaman made shift for him and Drinkwater looked around. The blue circle of the sea was broken by some two hundred odd white specks as the armada sailed south. In that direction, below the horizon, the advanced frigates reconnoitred. Behind them in three divisions came the dark hulls of the ships of the line, a few of them wearing the yellow gunstrakes that would soon become uniform. In the centre of the middle column