"We have fed our sea for a thousand years,
And she calls us, still unfed,
Though there's never a wave of all her waves
But marks our English dead;
We have strawed our best to the weed's unrest,
To the shark and the sheering gull.
If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!
* * * * *
There's never a flood goes shoreward now
But lifts a keel we manned;
There's never an ebb goes seaward now
But drops our dead on the sand.
We must feed our sea for a thousand years,
For that is our doom and pride,
As it was when they sailed with the Golden Hind,
Or the wreck that struck last tide--
Or the wreck that lies on the spouting reef
Where the ghastly blue lights flare.
If blood be the price of admiralty,
If blood be the price of admiralty,
If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' bought it fair!"
--KIPLING.
As illustrations of cool daring, of the courage that does not count
numbers or depend on noise, nor flinch from flame or steel, few things
are more wonderful than the many cutting-out stories to be found in the
history of the British navy. The soldier in the forlorn hope,
scrambling up the breach swept by grape and barred by a triple line of
steadfast bayonets, must be a brave man. But it may be doubted whether
he shows a courage so cool and high as that of a boat's crew of sailors
in a cutting-out expedition.
The ship to be attacked lies, perhaps, floating in a tropic haze five
miles off, and the attacking party must pull slowly, in a sweltering
heat, up to the iron lips of her guns. The greedy, restless sea is
under them, and a single shot may turn the eager boat's crew at any
instant into a cluster of drowning wretches. When the ship is reached,
officers and men must clamber over bulwarks and boarding-netting,
exposed, almost helplessly, as they climb, to thrust of pike and shot
of musket, and then leap down, singly and without order, on to the deck
crowded with foes. Or, perhaps, the ship to be cut out lies in a
hostile port under the guard of powerful batteries, and the boats must
dash in through the darkness, and their crews tumble, at three or four
separate points, on to the deck of the foe, cut her cables, let fall
her sails, and--while the mad fight still rages on her deck and the
great battery booms from the cliff overhead--carry the ship out of the
harbour. These, surely, are deeds of which only a sailor's courage is
capable! Let a few such stories be taken from faded naval records and
told afresh to a new generation.
In July 1800 the 14-gun cutter _Viper_, commanded by acting-Lieutenant
Jeremiah Coghlan, was attached to Sir Edward Pellew's squadron off Port
Louis. Coghlan, as his name tells, was of Irish blood. He had just
emerged from the chrysalis stage of a midshipman, and, flushed with the
joy of an independent command, was eager for adventure. The entrance
to Port Louis was watched by a number of gunboats constantly on
sentry-go, and Coghlan conceived the idea of jumping suddenly on one of
these, and carrying her off from under the guns of the enemy's fleet.
He persuaded Sir Edward Pellew to lend him the flagship's ten-oared
cutter, with twelve volunteers. Having got this reinforcement, and
having persuaded the _Amethyst_ frigate to lend him a boat and crew,
Mr. Jeremiah Coghlan proceeded to carry out another and very different
plan from that he had ventured to suggest to his admiral. A French
gun-brig, named the _Cerbère_, was lying in the harbour of St. Louis.
She mounted three long 24 and four 6-pounders, and was moored, with
springs in her cables, within pistol-shot of three batteries. A French
seventy-four and two frigates were within gunshot of her. She had a
crew of eighty-six men, sixteen of whom were soldiers. It was upon
this brig, lying under three powerful batteries, within a hostile and
difficult port, that Mr. Jeremiah Coghlan proposed, in the darkness of
night, to make a dash. He added the _Viper's_ solitary midshipman,
with himself and six of his crew, to the twelve volunteers on board the
flagship's cutter, raising its crew to twenty men, and, with the
_Amethyst's_ boat and a small boat from the _Viper_, pulled off in the
blackness of the night on this daring adventure.
The ten-oared cutter ran away from the other two boats, reached the
_Cerbère_, found her with battle lanterns alight and men at quarters,
and its crew at once jumped on board the Frenchman. Coghlan, as was
proper, jumped first, landed on a trawl-net hung up to dry, and, while
sprawling helpless in its meshes, was thrust through the thigh with a
pike, and with his men--several also severely hurt--tumbled back into
the boat. The British picked themselves up, hauled their boat a little
farther ahead, clambered up the sides of the _Cerbère_ once more, and
were a second time beaten back with new wounds. They clung to the
Frenchman, however, fought their way up to a new point, broke through
the French defences, and after killing or wounding twenty-six of the
enemy--or more than every fourth man of the _Cerbère's_ crew--actually
captured her, the other two boats coming up in time to help in towing
out the prize under a wrathful fire from the batteries. Coghlan had
only one killed and eight wounded, himself being wounded in two places,
and his middy in six. Sir Edward Pellew, in his official despatch,
grows eloquent over "the courage which, hand to hand, gave victory to a
handful of brave fellows over four times their number, and the skill
which planned, conducted, and effected so daring an enterprise." Earl
St. Vincent, himself the driest and grimmest of admirals, was so
delighted with the youthful Irishman's exploit that he presented him
with a handsome sword.
In 1811, again, Great Britain was at war with the Dutch--a tiny little
episode of the great revolutionary war. A small squadron of British
ships was cruising off Batavia. A French squadron, with troops to
strengthen the garrison, was expected daily. The only fortified port
into which they could run was Marrack, and the commander of the British
squadron cruising to intercept the French ships determined to make a
dash by night on Marrack, and so secure the only possible landing-place
for the French. Marrack was defended by batteries mounting fifty-four
heavy guns. The attacking force was to consist of 200 seamen and 250
troops, under the command of Lieutenant Lyons of the _Minden_. Just
before the boats pushed off, however, the British commander learned
that the Dutch garrison had been heavily reinforced, and deeming an
assault too hazardous, the plan was abandoned. A few days afterwards
Lyons, with the _Minden's_ launch and cutter, was despatched to land
nineteen prisoners at Batavia, and pick up intelligence. Lyons, a very
daring and gallant officer, learned that the Marrack garrison was in a
state of sleepy security, and, with his two boats' crews, counting
thirty-five officers and men, he determined to make a midnight dash on
the fort, an exploit which 430 men were reckoned too weak a force to
attempt.
Lyons crept in at sunset to the shore, and hid his two boats behind a
point from which the fort was visible. A little after midnight, just
as the moon dipped below the horizon, Lyons stole with muffled oars
round the point, and instantly the Dutch sentries gave the alarm.
Lyons, however, pushed fiercely on, grounded his boats in a heavy surf
under the very embrasures of the lower battery, and, in an instant,
thirty-five British sailors were tumbling over the Dutch guns and upon
the heavy-breeched and astonished Dutch gunners. The battery was
carried. Lyons gathered his thirty-five sailors into a cluster, and,
with a rush, captured the upper battery. Still climbing up, they
reached the top of the hill, and found the whole Dutch garrison forming
in line to receive them. The sailors instantly ran in upon the
half-formed line, cutlass in hand; Lyons roared that he "had 400 men,
and would give no quarter;" and the Dutch, finding the pace of events
too rapid for their nerves, broke and fled. But the victorious British
were only thirty-five in number, and were surrounded by powerful
forces. They began at once to dismantle the guns and destroy the fort,
but two Dutch gunboats in the bay opened fire on them, as did a heavy
battery in the rear.
At daybreak a strong Dutch column was formed, and came on at a resolute
and laborious trot towards the shattered gate of the fort. Lyons had
trained two 24-pounders, loaded to the muzzle with musket balls, on the
gate, left invitingly open. He himself stood, with lighted match, by
one gun; his second in command, with another lighted match, by the
other. They waited coolly by the guns till the Dutch, their officers
leading, reached the gate, raising a tumult of angry guttural shouts as
they came on. Then, from a distance of little over ten yards, the
British fired. The head of the column was instantly smashed, its tail
broken up into flying fragments. Lyons finished the destruction of the
fort at leisure, sank one of the two gunboats with the last shot fired
from the last gun before he spiked it, and marched off, leaving the
British flag flying on the staff above the fort, where, in the fury of
the attack, it had been hoisted in a most gallant fashion by the
solitary middy of the party, a lad named Franks, only fifteen years
old. One of the two boats belonging to the British had been bilged by
the surf, and the thirty-five seamen--only four of them wounded--packed
themselves into the remaining boat and pulled off, carrying with them
the captured Dutch colours. Let the reader's imagination illuminate,
as the writer's pen cannot, that midnight dash by thirty-five men on a
heavily armed fort with a garrison twelve times the strength of the
attacking force. Where in stories of warfare, ancient or modern, is
such another tale of valour to be found? Lyons, however, was not
promoted, as he had "acted without orders."
A tale, with much the same flavour in it, but not so dramatically
successful, has for its scene the coast of Spain. In August 1812, the
British sloop _Minstrel_, of 24 guns, and the 18-gun brig _Philomel_,
were blockading three small French privateers in the port of Biendom,
near Alicante. The privateers were protected by a strong fort mounting
24 guns. By way of precaution, two of the ships were hauled on shore,
six of their guns being landed, and formed into a battery manned by
eighty of their crews. The _Minstrel_ and her consort could not
pretend to attack a position so strong, but they kept vigilant watch
outside, and a boat from one ship or the other rowed guard every night
near the shore. On the night of the 12th the _Minstrel's_ boat, with
seven seamen, was in command of an Irish midshipman named Michael
Dwyer. Dwyer had all the fighting courage of his race, with almost
more of the gay disregard of odds than is natural to even an Irish
midshipman. It occurred to Mr. Michael Dwyer that if he could carry by
surprise the 6-gun battery, there would be a chance of destroying the
privateers. A little before ten P.M. he pulled silently to the beach,
at a point three miles distant from the battery, and, with his seven
followers, landed, and was instantly challenged by a French sentry.
Dwyer by some accident knew Spanish, and, with ready-witted audacity,
replied in that language that "they were peasants." They were allowed
to pass, and these seven tars, headed by a youth, set off on the three
miles' trudge to attack a fort!
There were eighty men in the battery when Michael and his amazing seven
rushed upon it. There was a wild struggle for five minutes, and then
the eighty fled before the eight, and the delighted middy found himself
in possession of the battery. But the alarm was given, and two
companies of French infantry, each one hundred strong, came resolutely
up to retake the battery. Eight against eighty seemed desperate odds,
but eight against two hundred is a quite hopeless proportion. Yet Mr.
Dwyer and his seven held the fort till one of their number was killed,
two (including the midshipman) badly wounded, and, worst of all, their
ammunition exhausted. When the British had fired their last shot, the
French, with levelled bayonets, broke in; but the inextinguishable
Dwyer was not subdued till he had been stabbed in seventeen places, and
of the whole eight British only one was left unwounded. The French
amazement when they discovered that the force which attacked them
consisted of seven men and a boy, was too deep for words.
Perhaps the most brilliant cutting-out in British records is the
carrying of the _Chevrette_ by the boats of three British frigates in
Cameret Bay in 1801. A previous and mismanaged attempt had put the
_Chevrette_ on its guard; it ran a mile and a half farther up the bay,
moored itself under some heavy batteries, took on board a powerful
detachment of infantry, bringing its number of men up to 339, and then
hoisted in defiance a large French ensign over the British flag. Some
temporary redoubts were thrown up on the points of land commanding the
_Chevrette_, and a heavily armed gunboat was moored at the entrance of
the bay as a guard-boat. After all these preparations the
_Chevrette's_ men felt both safe and jubilant; but the sight of that
French flag flying over the British ensign was a challenge not to be
refused, and at half-past nine that night the boats of the three
frigates--the _Doris_, the _Uranie_, and the _Beaulieu_--fifteen in
all, carrying 280 officers and men, were in the water and pulling off
to attack the _Chevrette_.
Lieutenant Losack, in command, with his own and five other boats,
suddenly swung off in the gloom in chase of what he supposed to be the
look-out boat of the enemy, ordering the other nine boats to lie on
their oars till he returned. But time stole on; he failed to return;
and Lieutenant Maxwell, the next in command, reflecting that the night
was going, and the boats had six miles to pull, determined to carry out
the expedition, though he had only nine boats and less than 180 men,
instead of fifteen boats and 280 men. He summoned his little squadron
in the darkness about him, and gave exact instructions. As the boats
dashed up, one was to cut the _Chevrette's_ cables; when they boarded,
the smartest topmen, named man by man, were to fight their way aloft
and cut loose the _Chevrette's_ sails; one of the finest sailors in the
boats, Wallis, the quartermaster of the _Beaulieu_, was to take charge
of the _Chevrette's_ helm. Thus at one and the same instant the
_Chevrette_ was to be boarded, cut loose, its sails dropped, and its
head swung round towards the harbour mouth.
At half-past twelve the moon sank. The night was windless and black;
but the bearing of the _Chevrette_ had been taken by compass, and the
boats pulled gently on, till, ghost-like in the gloom, the doomed ship
was discernible. A soft air from the land began to blow at that
moment. Suddenly the _Chevrette_ and the batteries overhead broke into
flame. The boats were discovered! The officers leaped to their feet
in the stern of each boat, and urged the men on. The leading boats
crashed against the _Chevrette's_ side. The ship was boarded
simultaneously on both bows and quarters. The force on board the
_Chevrette_, however, was numerous enough to make a triple line of
armed men round the whole sweep of its bulwarks; they were armed with
pikes, tomahawks, cutlasses, and muskets, and they met the attack most
gallantly, even venturing in their turn to board the boats. By this
time, however, the nine boats Maxwell was leading had all come up, and
although the defence outnumbered the attack by more than two to one,
yet the British were not to be denied. They clambered fiercely on
board; the topmen raced aloft, found the foot-ropes on the yards all
strapped up, but running out, cutlass in hand, they cut loose the
_Chevrette's_ sails. Wallis, meanwhile, had fought his way to the
wheel, slew two of the enemy in the process, was desperately wounded
himself, yet stood steadily at the wheel, and kept the _Chevrette_
under command, the batteries by this time opening upon the ship a fire
of grape and heavy shot.
In less than three minutes after the boats came alongside, although
nearly every second man of their crews had been killed or wounded, the
three topsails and courses of the _Chevrette_ had fallen, the cables
had been cut, and the ship was moving out in the darkness. She leaned
over to the light breeze, the ripple sounded louder at her stern, and
when the French felt the ship under movement, it for the moment
paralysed their defence. Some jumped overboard; others threw down
their arms and ran below. The fight, though short, had been so fierce
that the deck was simply strewn with bodies. Many of the French who
had retreated below renewed the fight there; they tried to blow up the
quarter-deck with gunpowder in their desperation, and the British had
to fight a new battle between decks with half their force while the
ship was slowly getting under weigh. The fire of the batteries was
furious, but, curiously enough, no important spar was struck, though
some of the boats towing alongside were sunk. And while the batteries
thundered overhead, and the battle still raged on the decks below, the
British seamen managed to set every sail on the ship, and even got
topgallant yards across. Slowly the _Chevrette_ drew out of the
harbour. Just then some boats were discovered pulling furiously up
through the darkness; they were taken to be French boats bent on
recapture, and Maxwell's almost exhausted seamen were summoned to a new
conflict. The approaching boats, however, turned out to be the
detachment under Lieutenant Losack, who came up to find the work done
and the _Chevrette_ captured.
The fight on the deck of the _Chevrette_ had been of a singularly
deadly character. The British had a total of 11 killed and 57 wounded;
the Chevrette lost 92 killed and 62 wounded, amongst the slain being
the _Chevrette's_ captain, her two lieutenants, and three midshipmen.
Many stories are told of the daring displayed by British seamen in this
attack. The boatswain of the _Beaulieu_, for example, boarded the
_Chevrette's_ taffrail; he took one glance along the crowded decks,
waved his cutlass, shouted "Make a lane there!" and literally carved
his way through to the forecastle, which he cleared of the French, and
kept clear, in spite of repeated attacks, while he assisted to cast the
ship about and make sail with as much coolness as though he had been on
board the _Beaulieu_. Wallis, who fought his way to the helm of the
_Chevrette_, and, though wounded, kept his post with iron coolness
while the fight raged, was accosted by his officer when the fight was
over with an expression of sympathy for his wounds. "It is only a
prick or two, sir," said Wallis, and he added he "was ready to go out
on a similar expedition the next night." A boatswain's mate named Ware
had his left arm cut clean off by a furious slash of a French sabre,
and fell back into the boat. With the help of a comrade's tarry
fingers Ware bound up the bleeding stump with rough but energetic
surgery, climbed with his solitary hand on board the Chevrette, and
played a most gallant part in the fight.
The fight that captured the _Chevrette_ is almost without parallel.
Here was a ship carried off from an enemy's port, with the combined
fleets of France and Spain looking on. The enemy were not taken by
surprise; they did not merely defy attack, they invited it. The
British had to assail a force three times their number, with every
advantage of situation and arms. The British boats were exposed to a
heavy fire from the _Chevrette_ itself and from the shore batteries
before they came alongside. The crews fought their way up the sides of
the ship in the face of overwhelming odds; they got the vessel under
weigh while the fight still raged, and brought her out of a narrow and
difficult roadstead, before they had actually captured her. "All this
was done," to quote the "Naval Chronicle" for 1802, "in the presence of
the grand fleet of the enemy; it was done by nine boats out of fifteen,
which originally set out upon the expedition; it was done under the
conduct of an officer who, in the absence of the person appointed to
command, undertook it upon his own responsibility, and whose
intrepidity, judgment, and presence of mind, seconded by the wonderful
exertions of the officers and men under his command, succeeded in
effecting an enterprise which, by those who reflect upon its peculiar
circumstances, will ever be regarded with astonishment."