The Battle of All the Ages (11 page)

‘Damnation! Look there, Musk! Fresh Holles has kept station with us, but by doing so, he’s pulled away from the
Ruby
, Will Jennens’s ship! Will’s foremast’s nearly gone, by God – he can’t keep his position – and both
Antelope
and
Ruby
are only Fourth Rates, and the Dutch can see that –’

Four Zeeland ships, one of them Vice-Admiral Banckert’s flagship, all of them bigger than our two Fourths, were sailing directly for the widening gap between the
Antelope
and the
Ruby
. Our own adversary, seeing the easier course and that the addition of his own strength would tip the scales decisively in favour of the Dutch, fell away and altered course toward the stern of the Antelope. But the change of course turned the quarterdeck of the Zeelander toward us, and as we unleashed one last broadside against her, I spied her captain through my telescope. I could not see his face, but his build was all too familiar.

‘It seems we have traded fire with my good-brother, Musk,’ I said.

‘He’s still alive, then? Damn. Thought I’d heard the last of his
sanctimonious
Dutch prating. Still, I suppose Lady Quinton will be happy that her twin’s still got his head on his shoulders.’

But I had no time to contemplate my brush with Captain
Cornelis
van der Eide, my brother-in-law. The Zeeland ships were pouring through the gap astern of the
Antelope
, and it was apparent at once that our fleet’s position was desperate. The Blue Squadron was now isolated, caught on the wrong side of the Dutch. Meanwhile the
Victory
and her seconds, all battle-scarred and badly damaged, were falling further and further away to leeward, very nearly out of sight as I peered through my telescope.

I only learned the fate of Sir Christopher Myngs much later, from his lieutenant John Narbrough. The
Victory
had become embroiled in an almighty duel with a huge Dutch flagship, and early in the
engagement
, Myngs’s face was shattered by a musket ball. But he stayed on deck, holding together his cheeks with his hands and continuing to direct the fight, until a second shot struck him in the neck. He was taken below and Narbrough took over the command, but even then, the tough little man would not die. He lingered for days, and even seemed set fair for recovery, despite the gruesome wounds he had suffered. At last, though, he succumbed, and England lost one of its greatest heroes. I would have gone to his funeral, but by then I was already embarked upon a dark and desperate mission for my King. Mister Pepys of the Navy Board went, and later, he told me what
transpired
. He was about to get into the coach of Sir William Coventry, the Duke of York’s secretary, when the two of them were approached by a tearful delegation from Myngs’s crew, who spoke words to this effect:

‘We are here a dozen of us that have long known, loved and served our dead commander, Sir Christopher Myngs, and have now done the last office of laying him in the ground. We would be glad if we had any
service we could do for him, and in revenge of him. But all we have is our lives. If you will please to get His Royal Highness to give us a fireship among us all, here are a dozen of us willing to go in it. Choose any one to be her captain, and the rest of us will serve him, whoever he is. Then, if possible, we will honour the memory of our dead
commander
, and give him the revenge he deserves.’

Such is the true spirit of England.

But such, alas, is also the true nature of England’s government: overwhelmed by the weight of business during wartime, Sir William Coventry simply forgot all about the offer.

With the fleet in desperate straits, I had only one thought, and only one duty: protect the flag. That meant defending the
Royal Charles
, and as the Dutch continued to breach the gaps in our line, I had Urquhart con the
Sceptre
into position off the flagship’s starboard quarter, to protect her from any enemy ships which attempted a raking pass. Tromp himself approached in his mighty
Hollandia
, but both we and the
Royal Charles
gave him a hot reception with a shattering broadside.

‘Flagship’s hoisting the blue at the mizzen, Sir Matthew!’

‘Very good, Mister Urquhart! Fall into her wake, as the instructions require!’

‘She’s wearing ship – coming round onto the other tack!’

‘Then we shall do the same!’

My words might have sounded confident, but a dark fear gnawed at my heart. Francis Gale sensed it. As the ships around the
Royal Charles
wore around onto the other tack until we were bearing roughly south-east again, parallel to the rear of the Dutch, the
Sceptre
’s
chaplain
stepped over to me and spoke softly.

‘You seem troubled, Matthew.’

‘They tell us the days of miracles are passed, Francis, and that saints no longer walk the earth. But I think you need to pray for a miracle
now, Reverend Gale. This manoeuvre is desperate. The duke clearly means us to sail to relieve the Blue Squadron, but what if Prince Rupert’s ships don’t follow suit, or go off to relieve Myngs and the
Victory
? I feared this, Francis – we all did. The consequence of having two commanders-in-chief in two separate ships. And what if the Dutch squadrons get to windward of us again and fall down upon us? Our fleet is divided and disorganised – but the Dutch are still in their line of battle. Once De Ruyter tacks back to the north, as he will surely do at any moment, we will be doomed.’

Francis said nothing. Instead he leaned against the starboard rail of the quarterdeck and closed his eyes.

Now, I am no believer in miracles. If they were disregarded then, in the simpler time that was the 1660s, they are ridiculed and reviled now, in these days when a German blockhead calls himself King George the Second and the only people who speak of miracles are the Jacobites, who need an almighty one to restore them to the throne. But whether it was a consequence of prayer, or, more likely, a glorious coincidence, that for the one and only time in their lives Rupert of the Rhine and George Monck had exactly the same thought at exactly the same moment – however it happened, we had our miracle.

‘The Red’s tacking!’ I cried, once I was certain of what the Prince’s ships were doing.

As soon as his ships fell in on their new tack, the tables were turned. Our ships were now sailing parallel to the Dutch – ourselves directly alongside them, firing broadside after broadside into Tromp’s ships, while Rupert’s stood further off to the west, to windward, thus
preventing
a counter-attack against us by any Dutch ships that tacked back to try to regain the weather gage. Meanwhile the Blue Squadron, which had seemed on the verge of destruction, trapped on the wrong side of the entire Dutch fleet, now lay directly ahead of Tromp,
trapping
him between them and us. Tromp had no alternative and fell away to leeward; in effect, his ships were dropping out of the battle.
Now our tails were up, by God! We Sceptres cheered ourselves hoarse at the sight of one of our fireships grappling on to a big Dutch frigate and igniting her. In what seemed like no time at all, she blew up, and we cheered even louder. I am ashamed to say that only Francis Gale was praying for the souls of all the brave Dutchmen who perished; for my part, I was cheering as loudly as the rest of them. Even Lord Rochester’s monkey clapped and shrieked patriotically.

We joined with the Blue, and slowly reformed ourselves back into a full line of battle. The Dutch, by contrast, remained widely separated, their squadrons in disorder. Now we sailed between them, sometimes engaging a ship to windward of us, next one to leeward. Once again, it was a case of tack and tack again, pass and pass again, the firing at too much of a distance to make much impact. But in the middle of the
afternoon
, a decisive change occurred. Since being forced out of the battle by Rupert’s and Albemarle’s brilliant simultaneous manoeuvre, Tromp and the other detached Dutch ships to leeward of us had struggled to come back at us, break through, and rejoin De Ruyter. Now they made a concerted effort, but we were ready for them. We happened to be sailing parallel to the
Royal Charles
, only a cable’s length or less off her starboard quarter, when I saw the unmistakeable stout figure of Albemarle, on the quarterdeck, pick up his voice trumpet and direct it toward me.

‘Sir Matthew!’ The loud Devonian voice carried easily across the water. ‘We will close Admiral Tromp, there, and bring him to close action! Lead and second the
Charles
, if you please!’

I brought up my sword in salute. We put out studding sails, pulled ahead of the flagship and fell down on the wind toward the Dutch ships. Behind us came the best part of forty English men-of-war, Rupert keeping his ships to windward to deter a relieving attack by De Ruyter. There was no more speculative firing from a distance. We hammered into Tromp’s ships, our heavier guns battering their weaker hulls. The
Royal Sceptre
came up against a smaller, but still substantial, Dutchman, and we unleashed two broadsides into her.

Richardson appeared before me. The carpenter was a rare sight on the quarterdeck, but he had been overseeing repairs to damaged planking on the forecastle.

‘Begging pardon, Sir Matthew,’ he said. Every word seemed to be a struggle for a man who much preferred silence. ‘The Dutchman, yonder. The mainmast. Quivering and shaking, it is. I’ll wager it’s in a bad state. One good shot –’

‘I take your point, Master Carpenter. Very well, then! Orders to Mister Burdett! Upper deck starboard battery to load with chain and bar, and to fire for the mainmast upon the uproll!’

We were approaching the Dutchman on the opposite tack, so there was precious little time. Boys ran up from below with the two different types of shot, and the gun crews on the starboard side loaded furiously. I went down into the ship’s waist and stood next to Burdett. Wait – wait – judge the moment…

‘Give fire!’

Our guns blazed and recoiled. Chain and bar shot whistled across the few dozen yards of water separating us from the Dutchman. Shrouds and sheets snapped and sprang away crazily in all directions. Several shot struck the trunk of the mast. I saw one unfortunate soul, in the wrong place at the wrong time, have his head taken clean away by a chain shot. The bleeding torso continued to stand for a moment, then fell down to the deck behind the ship’s rail.

At first it seemed as though our shot had no effect. But as we sailed on past the Dutchman’s stern, we heard a great crack like a peal of thunder.

‘Well done, Mister Richardson, by God!’ I cried. ‘There she goes!’

Already weakened earlier in the battle, and now with most of the standing rigging that support it shredded by our broadside, the
mainmast
cracked a few yards up from the deck. It toppled slowly to larboard, pulling at the fore and mizzen masts. Yet more rigging snapped. The mainsail fell across the ship’s waist, making it impossible to work the
guns. The Dutch ship was easy prey for the ship following us – and that was the huge
Royal Charles
. Unable to fight or manoeuvre, and
confronted
with the titanic broadside of the flagship, the Dutch captain did the only sane thing he could do. His colours came down, and the
Dom van Utrecht
, as we later discovered her to be, surrendered.

All around us, the same story was being repeated. Our ships were wreaking havoc upon the enemy. Through my telescope I could see the
Hollandia
, Admiral Tromp’s flagship, limping away to leeward, severely damaged. Other Dutch ships were scattering before one of our fireships, unwilling to meet the same fate as their compatriot
earlier
in the day. Others still were simply turning tail and running.

‘Look there, Sir Matthew,’ said Lord Rochester, beside Musk and I on the quarterdeck, ‘De Ruyter comes!’

Contrary to appearances, the young man had sharp eyes and sharp wits. There, coming up from the south with all sail set, was the great admiral himself, the
Seven Provinces
leading the charge.

‘So he does, My Lord. But he is surely too late – we have destroyed this half of his fleet. They are scattered and fleeing. And even if he does attempt to relieve them by attacking us, the Prince’s ships are still over there to windward. They can fall down on him from the rear, trapping the Dutch between them and us.’

‘Then have we won, Sir Matthew?’

‘Funny kind of victory if it is one, My Lord,’ said Musk. ‘The
Prince
gone, and poor Admiral Berkeley, and all the other good men who’ve fallen. All the bodies we’ve slung over the side, or who jumped and drowned in the night battle. The maimed men down in the surgeon’s cockpit, good for nothing now but hoping for charity from their
parishes
and begging on the streets when they don’t get it. Aye, a funny kind of victory. As they all are.’

I said nothing, but continued to watch the unfolding scene. I had the leisure to do so: there was clear water around us, and no opponent within range. My men were lying down, resting and drinking beer.
If De Ruyter threatened to attack, of course, the warrant and petty officers would have them back at their quarters in an instant. But the Dutch ships were not coming at us. The great De Ruyter, the
invincible
De Ruyter, was passing our sterns. Our men, and those aboard the other ships near us, cheered feebly.

The Dutch were running for Holland.

I lowered my telescope and smiled at the Earl of Rochester.

‘Yes, My Lord. Yes, we have won.’

Battle is a strange country, a nightmarish land full of unwanted
surprises
, unexpected vistas, foul smells and terrifying experiences. One can be talking to one’s neighbour, and in the very next instant he is headless, his bleeding corpse slumping against you. The acrid,
all-pervasive
stench of gunfire is often complemented by the stink of men shitting themselves in fear. Men whom one thought stout and
strong-hearted
, like Lancelot Parks, are revealed by battle to be no more than gibbering half-men. Others whom one assumed to be weaklings and probable cowards, like Jack Rochester, prove to be veritable lions under fire. Above all, though, battle toys with the emotions. In one moment you can feel the greatest elation you have ever known: you are certain you have the victory, and there is no better, stronger feeling that any man can experience than the conviction that you have triumphed over your foes. That was how I felt when I saw De Ruyter’s ships turning, apparently fleeing the battlefield, leaving the Navy Royal of England battered, bloodied, but victorious.

But no man can truly describe the feelings of a warrior who has the certainty of victory snatched away from him. In an instant, the weariness gnawing at the limbs after many hours of exhausting
combat
becomes unbearable. Wounds that have hardly been noticed are suddenly painful beyond measure. Above all, the heart seems to
contract
. It tightens, bringing on a kind of short-breathed blackness of the spirit. It is as if one has married the most beautiful woman in the world, only for her to turn to dust at the altar after the exchange of vows.

That is how it felt, that afternoon of the fourth day of the battle, when I realised with horror what I was witnessing. The Dutch ships that had sailed past us, the Dutch ships that had been fleeing away to leeward, the Dutch ships that had lost the battle – those same Dutch ships were now doing the inconceivable.

‘De Ruyter is not fleeing,’ I said to Musk, as I watched his ships put over their rudders, and saw their yards and sails swing round as
they came back into the wind. Back toward us. ‘He is regrouping. He is preparing to attack again.’

For once, the loquacious Phineas Musk had no words in response. Not even the world-weary, sarcastic Musk could comprehend what he was seeing. His shoulders slumped, and he looked like the old, recently wounded man that he was.

I heard groans from the gun crews in the waist and on the
quarterdeck
. These were men who had fought for four days, with precious little rest. They had given their all, and their exhausted bodies had nothing more to give. But somehow, they would have to rouse
themselves
one more time. Every man in the fleet would. For there, setting its course toward us on its new tack, was the
Seven Provinces
, the huge standard of Admiral De Ruyter streaming from the maintop.

My officers reported.

‘Mizzen’s shaky, Sir Matthew,’ said Richardson, ‘but God willing, I can fish her sufficiently so she’ll hold.’

‘Very good. Carry on then, Mister Richardson. How much shot left, Mister Burdett?’

The master gunner stood before me, looking sullen.

‘No more than four or five balls for each gun, Sir Matthew. More of chain, bar and grape. Barely twenty barrels of powder.’

‘Well,’ said Musk, ‘if we have a fifth day, perhaps we can lob
mess-plates
at each other.’

The Dutch came on. Now the
Defiance
swept past our larboard quarter, Sir Robert Holmes strutting the quarterdeck impatiently. He was close enough to shout out without needing a voice trumpet.

‘With me, Matt Quinton! De Ruyter is making for the
Royal Charles
! I’ve got next to no powder or shot, but I’m damned if those butter-box cheese-fuckers are going to take our flag!’

‘Directly in your wake, my admiral!’

We both laughed, though there was precious little humour in the situation. De Ruyter was no longer shunning close range duels lest our
heavy cannon smash his ships to pieces. Now he was coming in close and hard, knowing it was his only hope of driving straight at the heart of our fleet. At the flagship.

The
Defiance
and
Royal Sceptre
, together with Will Jennens’s
Ruby
and the valiant little
Sweepstakes
, formed a screen around the
Royal Charles
and waited for the Dutch to strike. A couple of Frisians came on first, but although the
Defiance
and
Sceptre
had little ammunition left, the
Ruby
had been with Rupert on his futile expedition
westward
, and thus had plenty of powder and shot to spare. She also had one of the maddest captains in the fleet: bragging, brawling, brave Will Jennens, whose wife (being even madder than he) had attempted to assassinate Oliver Cromwell, and whose niece became Duchess of Marlborough, effectively ruling the kingdom through bedding both its greatest soldier and its Queen, the late and unlamented Anna Regina. Will had managed to get his foremast repaired after our
encounter
with the Zeelanders earlier in the day. Now he placed the
Ruby
squarely in front of the Frisians and gave the first of them an almighty broadside, but the second veered away and raked him, smashing the fragile stern gallery and windows of the
Ruby
to pieces. Convinced he had defeated the
Ruby
and her captain, this fellow made directly for the
Royal Charles
, only to find the King’s Prick in his way. Undaunted, he made to grapple and board us, steering directly for our beakhead.

‘Sceptres, with me!’ I cried, leaping into the ship’s waist, sword in hand. ‘Cutlasses, muskets and
grenados
, men! Let’s give them a hot reception!’

Carvell, Macferran and three dozen or so other good men abandoned the upper deck guns and ran to the forecastle alongside me. But we were not the first there: not by any means.

Lord Rochester: who else? And who else in our fleet would have thought it appropriate to greet the Dutch, not with a volley of
chain-shot
and grape, but with his own translation of Lucan?

The libidinous Earl illustrated each couplet with a barrage of
grenados
. His aim had improved somewhat since the first day, but I noticed a number of our men still hanging back in case the noble young poet accidentally blew them to pieces. Strangely, though, the men
immediately
around him seemed to revel in the unconventional leadership of Lord Rochester and his monkey: our ‘lieutenant’ had even been dressed in a miniature baldric, hastily run up somewhere on the lower deck, and was throwing
grenados
with abandon. Across the water, the Frisians massed in their own forecastle clearly had not the faintest idea what to make of it all. Their warlike shouts and obscenities died away before the spectacle of a madman spouting Lucan and a monkey throwing bombs at them. The hesitation proved fatal, for on the other side of the Frisian ship, Will Jennens was bringing the
Ruby
’s bows back round into the wind.

I saw the glow of a linstock at one of the gun ports behind the
Ruby
’s beakhead, and knew what Will intended. His bow chasers, demi-culverins both, blazed and roared at once. He had charged them with grapeshot, the bags of musket balls, nails, and glass bursting as they struck the enemy. The men on the forecastle of the Frisian fell in
their droves, some pieces of bloodied flesh even making it across the yards of water that separated us to fall on the deck of the
Royal Sceptre
. A small splash of Dutch gore struck my cheek. The Frisian fell away, and both the
Sceptre
and
Ruby
slowly edged our ways back toward the
Royal Charles
, now exchanging fire with a big North Quarter flagship. My quarterdeck came up level with the
Ruby
’s, and I could see that Jennens was bleeding profusely from a wound in the head which his surgeon was attempting to staunch.

‘Fear not, Matt,’ he cried, ‘I’ll live! Damned beef-witted
hogen-mogens
hit the least important part of me! And if Fresh Holles can live with his arm being taken off, I’m sure I can live even if this fly-bitten bum-bailey of a surgeon has to cut off my head!’

And with that, Will Jennens roared with pain as the surgeon drove a needle into his scalp.

Shocking as it was, I reassured myself that De Ruyter’s unexpected charge was still suicidal. It could be nothing else. Prince Rupert and his ships were still to windward, most of them yet undamaged and with plenty of shot in reserve. They could come down on the wind, trapping the Dutch between us and them. The great Dutch admiral had surely made a terrible mistake. Just an hour earlier, he could have withdrawn to his own shore with honour, having fought us to a
standstill
. Now, we would absorb his brief onslaught; then, once the Prince’s ships engaged, we would annihilate him and his fleet.

But as the
Royal Sceptre
and
Ruby
resumed their positions
protecting
the
Royal Charles
, a gap opened up between the ships immediately to westward of us, giving me a view of Prince Rupert’s ships sailing large toward us. Thus I happened to be looking directly at the
Royal James
when the disaster occurred. The Prince’s flagship was a fine sight, bearing down with all sail set. She, and the rest of the windward ships, would fall down upon De Ruyter, trapping the Dutch once and for all
between the two halves of our fleet. We would still win. We were…

The maintopmast went first, and that brought down the main yard and the great sail it bore. On its own, this double calamity would have been enough to disable the great ship for an hour or two. But her masts had taken an awful battering, and the effect of rigging being stretched and pulled apart by the collapse of the top half of the
mainmast
immediately pulled down the entire mizzen mast too. The
Royal James
stopped abruptly and wallowed, out of control, upon the main. The ships around her shortened sail; their captains were not prepared to attack without the talismanic Prince leading them.

‘Switch your flag, Your Highness,’ I screamed. ‘In the name of God, move to another ship!’

But there was no sign of a boat leaving the
James
for one of the other ships. To this day, I do not know why Rupert, the bravest of the brave – aye, and often the foolhardiest of the foolhardy – did not shift his flag, resume command of his squadron, and bring it into action against De Ruyter. As it was, the Dutchman was emboldened by the sight of the catastrophe which befell the
Royal James
. A great red flag broke out at the foretop of the
Seven Provinces
. The bloody flag. De Ruyter was going for the kill.

The next hour was a kind of encapsulation of all the little hells of the entire four days of battle. The Dutch came again and again against the flagship and the tiny group of ships defending it. If they had been determined on the first three days, they were doubly ferocious now, the bloody flag and the sight of the crippled
Royal James
driving them forward like a host of avenging archangels. The sound of gunfire was all around, but most of it was coming from the Dutch; many of the English ships, our own included, were running out of ammunition, and were either attempting to conserve stocks for a final, desperate defence, or else had already run out. And now the
Royal Charles
was edging slowly north and west. At one point we were within voice trumpet range, and with one Dutch attack beaten
off and the next one not yet launched, Albemarle was able to bellow across the waters.

‘We’re holed below the waterline, Quinton, and we’re nearly out of powder. Keep on the larboard quarter – I’ve ordered Holmes to stay on the starboard. Cover our withdrawal.’

So there was to be no fresh tack, no attempt to counter-attack the Dutch. The battle, the great four-day battle that we had nearly won so many times, was lost, and this time there could be no retrieving it. I felt no despair, no shame; only relief that, God willing, it would soon be over, and no more would have to die.