The King's Chameleon (30 page)

Lying in the Medway, surrounded by the disorder of his repairing ship, he was impotent. There was nothing he could do but rely upon Katherine's good sense; that, at least, was a certainty in this shifting world. He went out on deck, to be met by Clarke.

‘I was on my way to see you, Sir Christopher. An officer from the
Royal Charles
brought this.' He handed Faulkner a sealed letter. Looking over the rail, Faulkner could see the flagship's boat being pulled to their nearest neighbour, the frigate
Sweepstakes
, with orders for her captain, Francis Sanders. Beckoning Clarke to follow him, Faulkner led him to the great cabin, unsealed and read the letter.

He looked up at Clarke. ‘The Dutch are said to be at sea again, and His Highness and the Duke are of the opinion they mean to attempt a landing near Harwich. They express a desire for the fleet to be ready for sea by the twentieth. I see no reason why we cannot comply. Do you?'

Clarke shook his head. ‘Not at all. Water is my only concern at the moment; the Master is fretting over it and asks if you could use your influence …'

‘Huh!' Faulkner expostulated. ‘I have precious little left of that hereabouts! Have you not noticed I need a new pair of breeches every time I go ashore, so worn are the knees out of my others?'

Clarke grinned. ‘I had not noticed, sir, only that you were sprouting wings in imitation of an angel. The men are much impressed with your ability to conjure spars and cordage out of the dockyard's chief misers.'

Faulkner smiled. ‘If they only knew the truth. Now, tell me, our sails … have we made good the damages in full?'

‘Not quite; the mizzen is still in the sail loft but I am myself going ashore this afternoon to chivvy them. I have three seamen working with the dockyard but so too has
Sweepstakes
and
Old James
…'

‘And all the rest of them, I'll warrant.' Faulkner finished the sentence for Clarke. ‘Now what about men?'

They went on to discuss the most troublesome matter of all, recruiting their ship's company.

The fleet did not weigh anchor on the twentieth, but not because the
Albion
kept it waiting. In the event it was the following day that the signal, emphasized by a gun, was made aboard Rupert and Albemarle's joint flag-ship, the
Royal Charles
. The westerly wind was steady – ‘a topsail breeze' – as the fleet sailed downstream in its order of battle. In the van lay the White Squadron, commanded by Admiral Sir Thomas Allin in the
Royal James
, and itself led by Allin's vice admiral, Sir Thomas Teddiman in the
Royal Katherine
. Faulkner's
Albion
lay in the centre division, the Red Squadron under Rupert and Albemarle. This was led by Vice Admiral Sir Joseph Jordan in the
Royal Oak
, with the
Albion
next astern of her, ahead of the
Warspite
. Ship after ship passed Sheerness, cleared the Nore and followed her next ahead down the King's Channel, eighty-seven sail, mostly men-of-war but with eight armed merchantmen and a score of fire-ships. From Teddiman's flag-ship, the
Royal Katherine
, to the armed merchantman
Loyal Merchant
, latter-most ship of Admiral Sir Jeremy Smyth's Blue Squadron forming the rear division of the fleet, the line was some nine miles long.

By the evening of the twenty-second of July this immense fleet lay anchored off the Gunfleet Sand. It was soon bruited abroad that de Ruyter and his fleet lay a score of miles away, just east of the Galloper Sand. That evening Faulkner called his officers in to dine with him.

The evening passed convivially enough, though Faulkner noticed that he was not the only one to cup a hand behind an ear to hear what his neighbour was saying, for they were all suffering from the debilitating irritation of a hissing and ringing tinnitus.

‘We can expect to sight the Dutch tomorrow,' he said, looking round at them. ‘With our last encounter in mind, I suggest you try and get a good night's sleep.'

They came in sight of the Dutch fleet the next morning, and for two days the long lines of ships passed and re-passed at a distance, out of range, each trying to obtain the advantage. For hour after hour Faulkner paced up and down the
Albion
's quarterdeck, leaving the ship-handling to the master and his lieutenants. Nothing more was necessary than to keep station, something the English fleet did with more precision than ever before. From time to time Faulkner would study the Dutch, throwing the odd remark at the master, an elderly man named Dixon.

‘I don't know whether he has been counting, or not,' he remarked impatiently at one point, ‘but de Ruyter shows no sign of acknowledging the fact that he has fewer ships than we do.'

‘No, sir,' responded Dixon, ‘but he cannot think that we have an appetite for battle after the drubbing he gave us last month.'

‘You think that he considers our manoeuvrings as vacillation, do you, Mr Dixon?'

‘It would seem so, Sir Christopher. My guess is that he is trying to weary us.'

‘He could certainly achieve that!' Faulkner remarked, drily.

‘Except that he wears himself out in the doing thereof.' Dixon spoke with a conviction that Faulkner considered entirely misplaced.

‘Hmm. That doesn't seem to be the case,' Faulkner mused, studying the Dutch through the telescope the late King had given him.

‘I beg your pardon, Sir Christopher, but the admiral's signalling,' interrupted the second lieutenant, then on duty on the quarterdeck.

And so it went on until, at about ten o'clock on the forenoon of St James's Day, the twenty-fifth, de Ruyter laid his fleet of seventy-two men-of-war on the same tack as the English. As the two parallel fleets converged, heading east, the thunder of the guns broke out again, and the men, standing easy by their cannon in anticipation of being called, were summoned to stand-to. A quarter of an hour later, her ship's company at their battle-stations, her officers at their posts, the fifty-gun
Albion
again went into action.

They say that you see the ball that is going to kill you – if, that is, you happen to be looking in the right direction. Certainly, before noon that day three balls had passed so close to Faulkner that, had he been aware of their coming, he might have observed this curiosity. The first sucked his hat off, the second spun him round like young Edmund's red spinning-top and the third took the telescope clean out of his hands, its eye-piece goring his nose, damage mitigated only because he was in the act of lowering it as the ball passed. The first and last of these projectiles were light-weight, from swivel-guns or arquebuses, possibly deliberately aimed at him from a height, for he was conspicuously the
Albion
's commander in his scarlet sash. The second was a ball from a great gun; it too spun him, but it also tore the air from his lungs and flung him to the deck, so that he collapsed and lay as though dead, until his reflexes dragged air back into his respiratory system and he gasped his shuddering way back to consciousness.

Directed by the ever-watchful Dixon, two seamen dragged him to the foot of the mizzen mast and propped him against it until he fully recovered his wits.

‘The
Gouden Draaken
,' Dixon remarked and waved his hand in the direction of the nearest Dutch ship in a brief lull when his voice could be heard, indicating the source of Faulkner's near miss.

Faulkner wanted to say that he could not care less from where the shot came; only that he wished all aboard the enemy vessel in Hell and he himself allowed to go home. At that moment, as he hovered between animal recovery and sentient thought, the idea of dandling little Edmund on his knee, while Hannah and Katherine looked on, seemed like a vision of Paradise.

But Paradise, or the other place, lay closer to hand. He struggled to his feet and steadied himself against the adjacent mizzen fire-rail. He accepted his precious telescope from Dixon, who had picked it up, remarking that it appeared to have suffered no damage. ‘It must have been the suction in the air,' he remarked conversationally.

‘No doubt,' responded Faulkner. He needed no glass to see the
Gouden Draaken
, close to their starboard side, her topsails looming against the sky. He would be a lucky man if he survived the day.

As they lay in their allotted place in the long line of battle and exchanged broadsides with their opponent, the
Albion
's men, weakened by their losses in the Four Days' Battle, stood to their guns with a furious determination. Even the weakest-minded among them appreciated the humiliation they had suffered in June, and the lower-deck chatter had been of little more than bloodying ‘the square-heads' noses' – a joke which translated rather well in the sailors' argot. Having a square head, a Dutchman had no need of a nose!

The rage which these men brought to the serving of their brutal artillery was enthusiastically harnessed by the young lieutenants commanding the upper- and lower-deck batteries. Nevertheless, in the noise, confusion, smoke and howl of constant imprecations to, ‘Hull 'em!' or to, ‘Aim high, my lads, and knock the sticks out of the bastards!' – depending upon the prevailing point of view of the officers – few could properly see their target.

Faulkner had learned to leave the station-keeping to Dixon. The master gave his orders to the quartermasters at the helm with cool efficiency, constantly and apparently simultaneously trimming sail to maintain their position, a puppet-master to the top-men and seamen detailed to leave their guns and tend the braces when called upon to do so. Faulkner's task was to press the enemy, to oversee the effort his people made in serving the guns and, with one officer detailed to do so, ensure than any signal made by any of the admirals – but chiefly the two flag-officers commanding the central Red Squadron – was conformed with.

Not that Rupert and Albemarle had much opportunity to do anything other than stand helplessly side by side on the
Royal Charles
's quarterdeck, for as long as the ships of war lay head to tail in the line of battle they had jointly determined upon, neither could do very much. Indeed they barely knew what was happening ahead, still less astern, where Smyth's Blue Squadron had fallen back and become detached, inducing the Dutch rear admiral, van Tromp, to break his own line and turn to fall upon the English rear. They could just make out that extensive damage had been inflicted upon de Ruyter's flag-ship,
De Zeven Provinciën
, for she had lost much of her top-hamper, falling out of the line as de Ruyter's men exerted themselves in emergency repairs.

Faulkner saw none of this, only the bulk of the
Gouden Draaken
and the ships ahead and astern of her, each of which was engaged with her opposite number in the English line. Towards four o'clock in the afternoon someone forward shouted that the Dutch line was breaking. Faulkner and Dixon peered ahead through the smoke, but could see nothing.

‘They've haven't maintained their battle-line with the same precision as we have all day,' Dixon remarked, adding: ‘It don't signify.'

Nor did it seem to for some few minutes more. Faulkner turned to look astern, and when he swung forward again, it was to see Dixon cut in half, the ball passing before his eyes like a dark line, to smash into the opposite bulwark in a shower of splinters. He tore his appalled gaze away, looked to starboard at the loom of the
Gouden Draaken
. Her silhouette had changed! She was turning, breaking off the action!

Up and down the English line the noise of cheering could be heard; the gunfire slackened and slowly the gun-smoke cleared as the two fleets drew apart. Instinctively, the English fleet dressed its line under reduced sail until, as the sun westered, Rupert and Albemarle decided to finish their enemy off.

‘Signal from the flag-ship, sir,' one of the master's mates reported, looking at the signal-book. ‘General chase in line abreast, sir!'

‘Very well. Mr Dixon's dead …'

‘I know sir.' The younger man, whose name Faulkner knew, but could not for the life of him remember, spoke solemnly, his eyes alighting on the two distinct parts of what had, but a short while earlier, been a man to whom he was beholden.

‘Can you take the conning?' Faulkner asked him sharply.

‘Why, yes, Sir Christopher.' Faulkner observed enthusiasm kindle in the younger man's eyes. It was that easy, he thought sadly, for one's fate to make another's reputation.

‘Then do so. Lay the ship on a course of …' Faulkner crossed the deck and stared into the binnacle. ‘Of south-east by east.'

‘Sou'-east by east, aye, aye, sir.'

The fighting went on, but was less savage as de Ruyter began a masterly retreat. As had the English after the Four Days' Battle, the Dutch played their guns to good effect, holding the pursuing English at bay. Far to the west, Smyth likewise drove Tromp into conducting a clever withdrawal, and both elements of the Dutch fleet made for the shelter of the extensive shoals off their native coast.

As night came on the English withdrew to deeper water, attempting to re-engage next day but without success, de Ruyter passing his ships into the shelter of the Schelde and under the fortifications of Vlissingen. Captain Sir Christopher Faulkner knew little of this for not long after he had given the order to chase, he fell to the deck, blood pouring from one leg. Clarke was summoned to take over as Faulkner was carried below. Half an hour later, when the surgeon had conducted his inspection of Faulkner's wound, he reported to Clarke. ‘I fear for his life, Mr Clarke. He has lost a quantity of blood; his boot was full of it!'

‘We have conjured dawn early, Sir Christopher,' Clarke remarked. Both men stood at the larboard mizzen stays, their glasses levelled at the red glow that showed beyond the low silhouette of Vlieland. A spire and the regular ridges of dwelling-houses broke the low, extended hummock of the Frisian island. Night was coming on, and the red glow showed like a premature sunrise, a mirror of the sunset suffusing the western horizon with lurid hues of scarlet.