Cochrane (10 page)

On
14
May, almost midway during the voyage to Leghorn, five armed boats closed on the convoy. "At
4
p.m.," Cochrane reported, "the boats boarded and took possession of the two sternmost ships."

Again, he took a calculated risk, turning back to the two captured merchant ships. Fortune habitually favouring the bold, provided a sudden and propitious wind. "The breeze freshening, we came up with and recaptured the vessel
s with the prize crews on board
' Cochrane noted in his log. The armed boats had left the scene, but both French prize crews were themselves prisoners. On
21
May, he recorded "At anchor in Leghorn Roads. Convoy all safe." Best of all, his first fortnight of command had also brought him one captured French ship and over fifty prisoners.
¹⁶

This was the opportunity for which he had longed. Though detained in May by the bombardment of Massena's French army at Genoa, he and his crew captured three prizes in June, and three more in July. That natural talent for piracy, which made up an important part of his character as a seaman, had found its true employment in the service of his country. On
3
August
1800,
he anchored off Leghorn with his small fleet of prize vessels. "Lord Keith received me very kindly," he wrote. Lord Keith could afford to, since he received a substantial share of the prize money as the admiral commanding the area.
¹⁷

On Keith's orders, Cochrane spent the rest of the year operating from Port Mahon against the Spanish coast, whose defenders soon knew about the brig and its captain. To counter this, Cochrane had the
Speedy
repainted to resemble the
Clomer,
a neutral Danish brig which traded up and down the Spanish Mediterranean coast. On
21
December, Cochrane was cruising off the Spanish coast when he sighted a ship which had the appearance of "a well-laden merchantman". The prize was too good to miss and the
Speedy
gave chase to the large but unarmed vessel. On coming parallel, the ports of the "merchantman" swung open to reveal a row of heavy and powerful bronze cannon.

Cochrane, on the quarterdeck of the little brig, muttered something about having "caught a Tartar", and then ordered his men to run up Danish colours. But there was worse to come. The large ship had appeared to be only lightly manned, whereas now a couple of hundred armed men had appeared from below decks and the first boat was being lowered. If the
Speedy
attempted to run, she would be blown from the water. If she remained, then the Spaniards would board her. She had, as Cochrane remarked, "fallen into the jaws of a formidable Spanish frigate".

As the Spanish boat pulled closer, Cochrane ordered out of sight everyone who was wearing a recognisable British uniform. Then he revealed their defender. From below decks came a man in Danish uniform. He not only looked Danish, he spoke Danish as well and had been taken on by Cochrane in Minorca for that reason. As the Spanish boat came within hail, the Dane began to parley with its occupants, who still seemed insistent on boarding the
Speedy,
But Cochrane had further elaborated his masterstroke, following the pattern by which he customarily unnerved his opponents. When they thought that the worst had happened, there was, as a rule, one more thing for which they were totally unprepared.

In this case, the Dane spoke dolefully in his guttural Spanish and indicated the foremast of the brig. Cochrane's seamen had been busy and there now flew a single yellow flag: the
Speedy
was in quarantine with several cases of plague on board. It all fitted the Dane's story of having come from Algiers, where plague had indeed broken out, and it was perfectly adapted to the Spanish fear of importing the contagion into their own country. A boarding party which remained on a plague-stricken brig would have small chance of survival. Even after a brief visit they might well take the pestilence back to their own crowded ship.

The Spaniards hesitated. Then the boat's crew bent to their oars and began to pull back towards the frigate. It was not worth the risk. The Spanish ship "filled and made sail".
¹⁸

Cochrane's ingenuity in the face of superior weapons was sometimes as elaborate as this and sometimes very simple. Three months later, on
18
March
1801,
the
Speedy
had just put to sea from Port Mahon when, towards evening, Cochrane saw that she was being followed by a large and powerful frigate. He signalled the frigate, using the Royal Navy code in operati
on at the time, and received no
reply. The only hope for the
Speedy
lay in escape. Cochrane crowded on his sails but the force of the wind was such that one sail parted company from the rigging. At dawn the next day, the frigate still had them in sight and gained steadily on the little brig until that evening. There could be only one end to the chase. During the second night, as on the first, the frigate was guided by the glimmer of light which was inevitable on any ship. An hour before dawn she was almost on top of her prey. And then the sky lightened. Just ahead of the frigate there was a large wooden tub with a candle burning it. Of the
Speedy
there was no sign.
¹⁹

Both at sea and on shore the legends about the new commander began to spread. When some exiled French royalist officers gave a fancy-dress ball during the
Speedy's
visit to Malta, Cochrane decided to go in the dress of an ordinary Br
itish seaman, complete with mar
linspike and a lump of grease in his hat. It did not occur to him that the French officers would take him for a real British seaman who was trying to force his way into the genteel company of themselves and their ladies. At the door of the ballroom he found his path barred. Such costumes, he was told, were not permitted. Cochrane accused the French royalist of slandering British sailors and announced that, having bought a ticket for their ball, he would come in any costume that he chose.

The French officer who acted as master of ceremonies came to the door and reached for Cochrane's collar, in order to drag him out of the ante-room. Cochrane replied wit
h a powerful punch to the royal
ist's nose and an obscenity, carefully spoken in French. There was a confusion of flying fists and falling
bodies, the angry young Scot f
elling all those who approached, until the picket-guard came running and Cochrane was carried off to the French regimental guardroom.

When his identity was discovered, the master of ceremonies demanded satisfaction for his swollen nose. The two men and their seconds met behind the island ramparts at dawn. The long-barrelled pistols were raised and the two shots rang out almost simultaneously. Cochrane felt a blow to his chest, but the bullet had been stopped by his coat and waistcoat, merely bruising him. To his horror, he saw the Frenchman stagger and fall. But, he assured Cochrane, he was "not materially hurt", merely wounded in the thigh. None the less, Cochrane was shaken by the episode and gave his word never again "to do anything in frolic which might give even unintentional offence".
²⁰

On the first anniversary of his command, he was at sea, off Barcelona. On
5
May
1801,
the
Speedy
gave chase to Spanish gun-boats, which hastily put into Barcelona. They behaved in every way like decoys, but Cochrane was undeterred. At daylight on
6
May, he set course through the early mist for Barcelona again, only to find himself sailing straight towards a powerful frigate, as the morning cleared. He recognised the
Gamo,
a
32
-gun Spaniard with a complement of over three hundred sailors and marines, and just four times the size of the
Speedy.
Cochrane's own crew was depleted by his very successes, since almost half of them had been put aboard captured vessels as prize crews in the past few weeks. He now had fifty-four men, instead of ninety, barely enough to sail the ship. To these rather startled seamen, he announced that he was going to engage the Spanish warship. All hands were piped to action and the
Speedy
steered towards the enemy.

In the moment before battle, each man knew his place. On the gun-deck the cannon were lined up at the ports, the row curving out slightly towards the centre. Powder-boys sat expectantly on the boxes brought from the magazine, while shot and wads were placed by each gun on its wooden trolley. Captains of the gun-crews wore priming-boxes buckled to their waists as they watched the locks fixed upon the guns and the lanyards laid around them. Officers with swords drawn stood by their divisions of men, while the last furniture from the captain's cabin and the wardroom was carried down into the hold. The entire ship might become the scene of hand-to-hand fighting and it was important that the decks should be cleared "for action". An efficient crew would clear even a battleship in five minutes or so.

As the two ships raced towards one another, Cochrane stood on the little quarterdeck with Lieutenant Parker, his brother Archibald, and as many of the crew as could be spared to carry small arms or cutlasses for the fight. There was no point in firing a broadside yet, since the shot would not carry half the distance to the Spanish ship. On the other hand, the
Gamo
now had the
Speedy
within range of her powerful guns.

The one factor in Cochrane's favour was the improbability of what he was about to do. The officers of the
Gamo
would never believe that anyone but a lunatic would try to attack them with a brig whose mastheads hardly reached much above their own quarterdeck. The frigate fired a shot which hissed above the
Speedy’s
deck and plunged into the water beyond. At the same time she ran up the Spanish colours. Cochrane watched this and then ordered his signaller to run up the American flag. The
Speedy
was now passing the windward side of the
Gamo
at
9.30
a.m., the mouths of the Spanish guns at the open ports silent but menacing. The American flag caused enough confusion and indecision among the Spanish officers to allow the brig to slip past unscathed. Then Cochrane turned his ship, came round on the leeward side of the
Gamo,
lowering the American flag and running up the British ensign.

Flame spouted from the
Gamo's
ports, followed by a rolling bank of smoke, as the first broadside roared out. The
Speedy
survived it, overtaking the frigate and coming in upon her fast. Cochrane ordered his men to hold their fire but to double-shot their guns. This reduced the range still further but turned a broadsi
de into a lethal hail of small,
sharp fragments of metal. The boom and billow of a second broadside from the
Gamo
echoed across the water but the
Speedy,
having got the leeward position, came through it undamaged. Lord Rodney had long since established that a ship to leeward was a difficult target, since her attacker tended to heel towards her with the wind, depressing the guns and making them liable to fire into the sea rather than into the enemy.

As the Spanish gunners reloaded, Cochrane brought the
Speedy
in, almost as though he were going to ram the frigate, and there was a crash as the little brig's masts locked with the lower rigging of the
Gamo.
The frigate's guns roared out again, but the cannon balls passed over the heads of Cochrane and his crew, tearing their sails and splintering some of the spars but unable to touch the hull. He ordered the
Speedy
's own
4
-pounders to be angled upwards and fired. The result was devastating. The shot came ripping upwards through the
Gamo's
gun-deck, causing appalling casualties among the gun crews and killing both the captain and the bosun. The bizarre and gruesome contest lasted for about an hour in this form. On three occasions, the Spanish marines from the
Gamo
tried to board the
Speedy.
Each time, Cochrane let them muster on the edge of the frigate's deck, and then swung his own ship away, opening up a watery gap and leaving them immobilised. Before they could withdraw, the musket-fire and shot from the brig cut through their ranks. Improbable as it might seem, he had fought the heavily-armed Spanish frigate to a standstill. "From the height of the frigate out of the water," he noted, "the whole of her shot must necessarily go over our heads, whilst our guns, being elevated, would blow up her main-deck." He had, of course, no intention of settling for less than total victory. His two killed and four wounded left him with forty-eight men against three hundred Spaniards. As he wrote in his despatch, "The great disparity of force rendering it necessary to adopt some measure that might prove decisive, I resolved to board." He informed his men of this, adding that they must "either take the frigate or be themselves taken, in which case the Spaniards would give no quarter". By this time, however, his men were flushed with enthusiasm at what they had achieved so far. In the words of one witness, they shouted that they would follow Cochrane to hell itself, if that was where he proposed to lead them.