A King's Cutter

It was a day of easterly wind which washed the air clear of the damp westerlies that had dogged them through the fall. Depression had followed depression across the Atlantic, eight weeks in which Kestrel had sought her principals under the greatest difficulties, her people wet and miserable, her canvas sodden and hard, her galley stove mostly extinguished.

The bright sunlight lay like a benefice upon the little ship so that she seemed reborn, changing men's moods, the skylarking crew a different company. Damp clothing appeared in the weather rigging giving her a gipsy air.

The low island that marked the western extremity of France lay astern on the larboard quarter and from time to time Drinkwater took a bearing of the lighthouse on the rising ground of Cape Stiff. He was interrupted in one such operation by a hail from the masthead: 'Deck there! Sail to windward!'

'Pass the word for the captain.'

'Aye, aye, sir.'

Griffiths hurried on deck, took a look at the island and the masthead pendant streaming over the starboard quarter in the easterly wind. 'Up you go Mr Drinkwater.' Agilely Drinkwater ascended the mast, throwing a leg over the topgallant yard. He needed but a single glance to tell him it was not Flora and to confirm a suspicion he knew he shared with Griffiths consequent upon the easterly breeze. The great naval arsenal of Brest lay ahead of them. The sail he was looking at had slipped down the Gouiet that morning. Beyond he could see another.

'Two frigates, sir,' he said reaching the deck, 'bearing down on us and making sail.'

Griffiths nodded. 'Mr Jessup!' He cast about for the boatswain who was hurrying on deck, struggling into his coat. 'Sir?'

'We'll put her before the wind, I want preventer backstays and every stitch she'll carry. Mr Drinkwater, a course clear of the Pierres Vertes to open the Fromveur Passage…' He issued more orders as the hands tumbled up but Drinkwater was already scrambling below to consult the chart.

The Île d'Ouessant, or Ushant to countless generations of British seamen, lies some thirteen miles west of the Brittany coast. Between the island and Point St Matthew a confused litter of rocks, islets and reefs existed, delineated within a pecked line on the cutter's chart as: 'numerous dangerous shoals, rocks, and Co wherein are unpredictable tide rips and overfalls.' Even in the mildest of weather the area is subject to Atlantic swells and the ceaseless run of the tide which at springs reaches a rate of seven and a half knots. When the wind and tide are in opposition they generate a high, vicious and dangerous sea. At best the tide rips and overfalls rendered the area impossible to navigation. So great were the dangers in the locality as a whole that a special treaty had been drawn up between England and France that provided for the latter country to maintain a lighthouse on Point Stiff 'in war as in peace, for the general benefit of humanity'. This tower had been erected a century earlier to a design by Vauban on the highest point of the island.

Two passages run through the rocks between Ushant and the mainland. The Chenal du Four, a tortuous gut between St Matthew and Le Four rocks, while the Fromveur lies along the landward side of Ushant itself. It was the latter that Drinkwater now studied.

As he pored over the chart Drinkwater felt the sudden increase of speed that followed the clatter, shudder and heel of the gybe. Kestrel thrust through the water responsive to the urgency felt by her commander. Bracing himself he slipped into his own cabin and took from the bookshelf a stained notebook. It had once belonged to Mr Blackmore, sailing master of the frigate Cyclops. He riffled through the pages, finding what he was looking for, his brow frowning in concentration. He looked again at the chart, a copy of an early French survey. The litter of dangers worried him, yet the Fromveur itself looked straight and deep. He cursed the lack of Admiralty enterprise that relied on commanders purchasing their own charts. Even Kestrel, employed as she had been on special service, received no more than an allowance so that Griffiths could have only what he could purchase.

Drinkwater went on deck. Ushant was on the starboard bow now and a glance astern showed the nearer frigate closing them fast. The sooner they got into the Fromveur and out-performed her the better. Drinkwater recalled Barrallier's superior air, his confidence in the sailing qualities of French frigates and his astonishment at finding Griffiths navigating the French coast on obsolete charts: the old government of France had established a chart office more than seventy years earlier, he had said.

A feeling of urgency surged through him as he bent over the compass, rushing below to lay off the bearings. Already the Channel flood had swept them too far to the north, pushing them relentlessly towards the rocks and reefs to starboard. He hurried back on deck and was about to request Griffiths turn south when another hail reached the deck.

'Breakers on the starboard bow!'

Jessup started for the mainsheet. 'Stand by to gybe!' he shouted. By gybing again Kestrel could stem the tide and clear the rocks by making southing. The men were already at their stations, looking expectantly aft, awaiting the order from Griffiths.

'Belay that, Mr Jessup… Are they the Pierres Vertes, Mr Drinkwater?'

'Yes, sir.' Griffiths could see the surge of white water with an occasional glimpse of black, revealing the presence of the outcrops. To gain southing would allow the frigate to close.

'Steer nor' west… harden your sheets a trifle, Mr Jessup… Mr Drinkwater, I'm going inside…' His voice was calm, reassuring, as though there was no imminent decision to be taken. Drinkwater was diverted by the appearance of a shot hole in the topgallant, a ball smacked into the taffrail, sending splinters singing across the deck. A seaman was hit, a long sliver of pitch pine raising a terrible lancing wound. They had no surgeon to attend him.

To clear the reef the French frigate had altered to larboard, her course slightly diverging from that of the cutter so that a bow gun would bear. The smoke of her fire hung under her bow, driven by the following wind.

'Steer small, damn your eyes,' Griffiths growled at the helmsman. Drinkwater joined him in mental exercises in triangulation. They knew they must hold Kestrel close to the Pierres Vertes to avoid the tide setting them too far to the north on to the Roche du Loup, the Roche du Reynard and the reefs between; to avoid the temptation of running into clear water where the dangers were just submerged.

The Pierres Vertes were close now, under the bow. The surge and undertow of the sea could be felt as the tide eddied round them. Kestrel staggered in her onward progress then, suddenly, the rocks lay astern. A ragged cheer came from the men on deck who were aware that their ship had just survived a crisis.

The relief was short lived.

'Deck there! Sail to starboard, six points on the bow!' Drinkwater could see her clearly from the deck. A small frigate or corvette reaching down the Passage Du Fromveur, unnoticed in their preoccupation with the rocks but barring their escape.

'Take that lookout's name, Mr Drinkwater, I'll have the hide off him for negligence…'

Another hole aloft and several splashes alongside. One ball ricochetted off the side of a wave and thumped, half spent, into the hull. They were neatly trapped.

Drinkwater looked at Griffiths. The elderly Welshman bore a countenance of almost stoic resignation in which Drinkwater perceived defeat. True, Kestrel might manoeuvre but it would only be out of form, out of respect for the flag. It was unlikely she would escape. Griffiths was an old man, he had run out of resolution; exhausted his share of good fortune. He seemed to know this as a beaten animal slinks away to die. To surrender a twelve-gun cutter to superior force would be no dishonour.

As if to emphasise their predicament the new jolly boat, stowed in the stem davits, disintegrated in an explosion of splinters, the transom boards of the cutter split inwards and a ball bounced off the breech of No 11 gun, dismounting it with an eerie clang and whined off distorted over the starboard rail.

'Starboard broadside make ready!' Griffiths braced himself. 'Mr Drinkwater, strike the colours after we've fired. Mr Jessup we'll luff up and d'you clew up the square sails…'

A mood of sullen resignation swept the deck like a blast of canister, visible in its impact. It irritated Drinkwater into a sudden fury. A long war Appleby had said, a long war pent up in a French hulk dreaming of Elizabeth. The thought was violently abhorrent to him. Griffiths might be exchanged under cartel but who was going to give a two-penny drum for an unknown master's mate? They would luff, fire to defend the honour of the flag and then strike to the big frigate foaming up astern.

Ironic that they would come on the wind to do so. Reaching the only point of sailing on which they might