Issue X
Contents
I
Alexander Kent
II Naval
Customs
III To
Grips with the Enemy
IV Success
to the Brave
V
A new seafaring family saga from Douglas Reeman
I
Alexander Kent
As a boy at prep school Alexander Kent took every
opportunity to attend the naval reviews of the thirties, but usually managed
to find his attention returning again and again to the earlier days of
sail, and was often found exploring Nelson's old flagship Victory
at Portsmouth.
At the outbreak of the war,
and in spite of belonging to an army family, he joined the navy without
any hesitation, and served in the Battle of the Atlantic as well as in
the campaigns in the Mediterranean and Normandy.
After the war, while establishing
himself as a full-time writer and self-taught naval historian, he became
more determined to write authentic stories of the period which remained
closest to his heart – of the ships and men who by choice or enforcement
lived, served and died in them.
He takes every opportunity
to visit the scenes of this naval heritage and to collect and examine relics
of a time which for him is still very much alive. He is a governor
of the frigate Foudroyant, which, laying at anchor at Portsmouth,
is the oldest British warship afloat.
RETURN
TO TOP
II
Naval Customs
Saluting
the Quarterdeck
In the days of sail it was customary for officers
and seamen to uncover their heads and face aft when they stepped aboard.
The ensign is flown from aft, and it is widely accepted even today as a
sign of authority.
It is generally believed that the custom is much
older than this and comes from the days when a shrine or crucifix was carried
aft on the poop.
Piping
on Board
For a senior officer or important visitor to arrive
on board a tall-sided ship-of-the-line, it was often necessary to hoist
him up bodily in a boatswain's chair. The instructions to the seamen
at the tackles were given on a boatswain's silver 'call', just as other
routine orders were piped between decks much as they are today. It
became a mark of respect to a flag officer or captain, a form of salute.
Firing
Salutes
This very old custom was originally carried out
with shotted guns, the salute being returned gun for gun by the shore battery
or fortress of the foreign port to prove that the visiting ship was unarmed
and her mission was a peaceful one.
Salutes are now fired on Royal
birthdays and other State occasions as instructed.
People of rank are always entitled
to gun salutes, the maximum being that of twenty-one guns. It was even
laid down in 1935 that His Holiness the Pope is entitled to twenty-one
guns if he is in a port or city being visited by a British warship.
Drinking
Toasts
The monarch's health is always drunk sitting down.
It is said that William IV while serving at sea often bumped his head on
the deckhead beams when responding to the Royal Toast and changed the custom
accordingly. Another version is that George IV, when he was Regent,
dined aboard a man-of-war and said, ‘?Gentlemen, pray be seated, your loyalty
is beyond suspicion.’
A less charitable explanation
originated on the lower deck where it was said that the officers were too
unsteady to stand when the Toast was called!
RETURN
TO TOP
III
To Grips with the Enemy
It was Horatio Nelson who proclaimed that ‘in
my view no captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that
of an enemy.’
As a strategist and naval tactician
Nelson was unsurpassed, his particular yardstick being that the Fighting
Instructions should never be a substitute for a captain's own initiative.
But this is hindsight.
It is when we picture the actual moment when two or more vessels meeting
at sea that we can grasp the true difficulties of any captain.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, as Britain and France fought for mastery of the oceans, both
navies were plagued by poor communications. Quite apart from the
skill and daring needed for the captain of a man-of-war to engage an enemy
with the maximum advantage on his side, he had the additional problem of
not knowing how his adversary would react. Many ships were out of
contact with the land and superior authority for months on end. When a
captain had last heard something definite he might have been at war.
And yet in the meantime peace could have been declared so that he would
be attacking a ship no longer a foe.
It was useless to declare himself
ignorant of the facts. A court-martial rarely took the side of an
officer who miscalculated the situation as he saw it.
As the first report of a sail
on the horizon was passed to him the captain had to consider all these
problems before he tried to engage. Friend or enemy? Neutral
or in complete ignorance of the state of affairs between nations?
The admiral in command of a
fleet or squadron had few such uncertainties. He would be kept in
contact with higher authority by speedy frigates and courier brigs.
Once he decided to attack, it was largely a matter of his individual captains
joining the fight as soon as possible.
The solitary ship, however,
had to gauge the wind and use it with the same skill and experience as
any of her cannon. With luck the captain would hold the wind-gage
to give himself time to run down on the enemy or slip away if he was proved
wrong in his estimation of the other ships intentions. By staying
up to windward he could take his time, for there was a lot to do before
he committed himself and his company to a bloody battle at close quarters.
The ship would be cleared for
action, the jerking clatter of the young marine drummer boys beating the
hands to quarters making many a heart miss a stroke while all the time
the strange sail grew larger and more menacing.
Chain-slings would be rigged
to the yards so that the gun crews could be protected against falling spars
and severed rigging. With decks sanded to prevent the men from slipping
in spray or blood, all eyes would be turned aft to the lonely figure of
the captain. It might be his first encounter, and the older hands
would be looking to him to gauge their own chances of prize money or sudden
death.
If he had miscalculated, the
captain might lose face with his men. At the next occasion he might
fail to rouse the backing of his company when it was most needed.
He would likely send an experienced
lieutenant or warrant officer aloft where, from his dizzying perch high
above the deck, he might see or recognize something about the newcomer
which would warn of real danger or allay their fears until the next time.
And all the time he would try
to hold his ship upwind from the other vessel, constantly trimming the
yards and sails so as to hold the advantage without giving the other captain
too many clues as to his final intentions.
If a captain did not stay to
windward or was hopelessly outmanoeuvred from the first sighting, he would
attempt to hold a converging tack in the hopes that he might dismast his
adversary, or cut her rigging so severely that that he could grapple her
without too much loss and damage to himself. The leeward ship would
lie over and have that one advantage of her broadside's elevation and greater
range.
The other ship is identified.
An enemy. Our captain has to close his mind to the possibility of
an armistice he knows nothing about. No further room for speculation.
Likewise the ship's company,
from hardened gunner's mate to lowly midshipman, all know there is no turning
back. Either the enemy's flag will triumph or there will be prize
money to share before the day is out.
The guns are loaded, double-shotted
for that first all-important broadside. When action is joined the
training and discipline will keep the gun crews at their trade, but few
broadsides are ever as well-aimed and telling as the first.
The large sails, the courses,
are furled into their yards. It gives the officers on deck a clearer
view of an enemy, and also lessens the chance of one of them being set
alight by a blazing wad from the enemy's gunfire. With so much tophamper
of tarred rigging, spars and canvas, any vessel can be transformed into
a blazing pyre in minutes.
The captain peers aloft at
the masthead pendant. To gain the best advantage it is better to
have the wind slightly on the quarter. Enough to run down on the
enemy, not too much to claw upwind if the first encounter goes against
us.
The order is piped to run out
the guns, and with the ship heeling slightly to leeward it is made easy
for the crews. The muzzles poke through theports like black
snouts. Each gun captain is peering along his barrel, looking for the enemy,
trying to estimate the fall of shot.
As the order to fire is shouted
from aft, the air splitsto the deafening crash of cannon fire, the
smoke billows downwind to blot out the other ship in a dense barrier.
But the captain is not watching
the gun crews as they sponge out their weapons and try to reload before
their enemy's iron comes scything through the rigging or hammers into the
hull; his eyes are on the other ship's yards above the smoke. Is
she turning towards us? Is she trying to haul away and run with the wind
rather than face a close encounter?
The smoke writhes and lifts
in the crash of the enemy's reply. Canvas and rigging fall, unheeded by
the sweating gun crews. Here and there a man falls, to be dragged
below for the surgeon's attention.
Our sails are casting
shadows over the enemy's gangway, he is paying off down wind, perhaps his
rudder shot away, or the afterguard cut down in that first murderous broadside.
Our sails have taken the wind out of his, our ship is a barrier against
any power which could hold him on the same tack. In the flash of
gunfire we see the glass of his stern windows as the hull continues to
drop downwind. It is almost over. One full broadside through
the enemy's unprotected stern will finish the battle.
His colours are already dipping
in submission, our men stare at one another with glee and disbelief.
By the quarterdeck rail the
captain gives nothing away.
He knows better than anyone
it could have been his own ship, and that the next time the wind may not
be so kind to him.
IV
Success
to the Brave
 Acclaimed
as ‘one of our foremost writers of naval fiction’ (Sunday Times),
Alexander Kent has gone from strength to strength since his first Richard
Bolitho novel appeared fifteen years ago. Fine storytelling, careful
attention to historical background and sweeping scenes of naval action
account for the world-wide success of his books. Success to the Brave
is the fifteenth Richard Bolitho story and chronologically it follows the
events covered by A Tradition of Victory.
In the spring of 1802 Richard
Bolitho is summoned to the Admiralty in London and given his orders for
a difficult and, to him, distasteful task. Even an advanced promotion
to vice-admiral to make him one of the youngest ever appointed does not
compensate for his sudden and thankless mission. Bolitho and his
wife are expecting their first child, and for once he is loath to quit
the land for the demands of duty.
The Peace of Amiens, signed
a few weeks earlier, is already showing signs of strain as the old enemies
wrangle over the return of colonial possessions won and lost during the
war. In the little sixty-four-gun Achates Bolitho sails west for
Boston, and thence to the Caribbean where he must hand over the island
of San Felipe to the French.
Bolitho discovers that to be
a man of diplomacy is not enough, and as threat and counter-threat weave
a web of intrigue around his lonely command he balances success against
the danger to his men who must follow him even to the cannon's mouth.
RETURN
TO TOP
V
A new seafaring family saga
from Douglas Reeman
 Followers
of Richard Bolitho will know that Alexander Kent has written many bestselling
modern sea stories under his own name, Douglas Reeman, and he has now embarked
on a dramatic new saga following successive generations of the seafaring
Blackwood family through 150 years' service in the Royal Marines.
The first novel in the series, Badge of Glory, was published in
1982 and the second, The First to Land, will appear in 1984.
Badge of Glory
in 1850 in that period of change that marked the coming of the steam age.
It is peacetime, and the world's mightiest navy has settled into a routine
of tradition and ceremony, broken only by the occasional campaign overseas.
Returning to his ship HMS Audacious at Spithead after a brief period
of leave at the family home in Hampshire, Philip Blackwood is ready for
action and excitement. When the squadron's new admiral receives orders
to sail to West Africa and stamp out the remaining strongholds of slavery,
Blackwood realizes he is about to get all the action he needs,
In the scorching African sun,
while defending a forgotten fort with a handful of men against hundreds
of savage tribesmen, or rescuing the woman he loves from a terrifying ordeal
at the hands of brutal slavers, and in the chill and desolation of the
Crimea, where his part in seizing a Russian redoubt leaves him severely
wounded, Blackwood brings distinction to the ‘badge of glory’ he wears.
GO
TO ISSUE XI
RETURN
TO TOP
|