Gordon Stables

THE BATTLE OF CAMPERDOWN.

“The flag of Britannia, the flag of the brave,
Triumphant it floateth on land and o’er wave,
And proudly it braveth the battle and blast,
For when tattered with shot it is nailed to the mast.”
Old Song.

was early on the morning of one of those bright and bracing days in the beginning of October, when summer seems to return as if to say good-bye before giving place to winter with its wild winds, its stormy seas, its driving mist and sleet. The Tonneraire had sailed in towards Havre on the previous evening. To put it in plain English, she was on the prowl. Jack had received word from a fisherman that lying at anchor was a very large store-ship belonging to the French, and he meant to cut her out or destroy her. But either the fisherman had deceived him or the vessel had sailed. He found no vessel that he could make a prize of, nor any foeman worthy of his steel.

Having been up half the night, Jack Mackenzie was tired, and had lain down to sleep. The ship was under easy sail, and going to the north and west, right before the wind. Jack was dreaming about his old home of Grantley Hall. He was walking in the garden on a bright moonlight night with his sister and Gerty; but the sister had gone on, up the broad green walk, while the other two stopped beside the old dial-stone, the figures on which were quite overgrown with green moss and gray pink-tipped lichens.

“See, see, Gerty,” he was saying, as he hurriedly cleared the stone, “the old time appears again, the dear old days have come once more. The figures were always there though we could not see them. Our old love, Gerty, like the figures in the dial, has been obscured, but never, never lost.” A bonnie blush had stolen over her face, and her long eyelashes swept her cheeks, as she glanced downwards at a bouquet of blue flowers Jack had given her. She was about to reply, when sharp as a pistol-shot on the quiet morning air rang out the voice of the outlook aloft,— “Sail ahead, sir; right away on the starboard bow!”

Gerty with her flowers of blue, Gerty with the bonnie blush on her cheek and the love-light in her eye, Grantley Hall, green grassy walks, dial-stone, and all vanished in a hand-clap, and next moment Jack was hurriedly dressing to go on deck.

She was a French sloop of war. Disappointed at his want of success on the previous night, Jack announced to Tom Fairlie his generous intention of blowing her sky-high.

So all sail was crowded in chase.

The sloop bore away before the wind. She knew, perhaps, her best course for safety and escape.

It was very tantalizing but very exciting withal. She might have been a phantom ship, so steadily did she crack on all day long, Jack never getting a knot nearer, nor she a knot farther off. Stun’-sails were set and carried away, all was done that could be done; but when at last the crimson sun sank in a pink and purple haze, all on board could see that the sloop had won the race.

But strange things happen, and but for this sloop Jack would never have had the honour of being at the battle of Camperdown. They had sailed very far north; and about five bells in the morning watch, while it was still dark, the Tonneraire found herself surrounded with mighty men-of-war. Now, if these were Frenchmen, the days and years of the swift Tonneraire were assuredly numbered. But they were not. They were the ships of Britannia, who was even then ruling the sea—the fleet of bold Scotch Duncan, who had been refitting at Yarmouth, when he had heard that the great Dutch fleet of De Winter had at last crawled out of the Texel, and was on its way south to effect a junction with the French, then—Heaven help Britannia!

“Going to join the French fleet De Winter is, is he?” Scotch Duncan said when he heard the news. Duncan never said a bad word, but on this memorable occasion he hitched up his Scotch breeks and added, “I’ll be dashed if he does. Make the signal ‘Up anchor!’” Having issued this order, he coolly entered his state-room to lock his drawers and put away his papers and jewellery, for he knew the ship would be knocked about a bit. As he did so he whistled “Johnnie Cope.”

And now the Tonneraire was hailed by the flagship, and told to fall in with the fleet.

Tom Fairlie rubbed his hands with delight, M?Hearty chuckled, and old Simmons rumbled out some remark to the effect that he knew Duncan well, and that “you youngsters” (that was Tom and Jack) “will soon have your fill of honour and glory.”

So they did.

And braver battle than Camperdown was never fought. Not only did our fellows exhibit the greatest of courage, but gallant De Winter as well.

The Dutch had about twenty ships, and we nineteen in all. Since the suppression of the mutiny at the Nore, Duncan had regained all his fleet; and the men seemed determined to wipe out the stain that had blackened their characters. And right well they succeeded.

You must go to history for a complete account of the battle. Suffice it for me to say that on coming up with the enemy’s fleet on the 11th of October, Duncan broke right through it and got inshore. De Winter could not have got away had he wanted to ever so much. The great battle was fought dangerously near to the coast indeed, for here were shoals and sands that were quite unknown to our fleet. The beach was lined with spectators, who must have been appalled at this terrible conflict of giants.

The Tonneraire was splendidly handled. Old Simmons himself took the wheel, and carried her grandly alongside a Dutchman nearly double her size, so close that the guns touched, and seemed to belch fire and destruction down each other’s iron throats. But Jack had no intention of stopping there to be blown out of the water by the Dutchman’s broadsides.

“Away, boarders!” It was Jack’s own brave voice sounding through the trumpet, high over the din of battle.

Then, ah then! a scene ensued that it may be just as well not to describe too graphically. Our marines and blue-jackets boarded pell-mell and together, and amid the roar of cannon from other ships, the incessant rattle of musketry from the tops, the hand-to-hand fight raged on, with shouts and groans and shrieks of execration. Hitherto no wounded man had been borne below to the cockpit, so that M?Hearty was idle as yet. He was on the rigging with the captain, from which they had a bird’s-eye view of the battle.

“Look, sir, look, the captain of marines has fallen. Oh, I can’t stand this!”

Next moment he had leaped below. Off went his coat and waistcoat and hat. He seized a cutlass, and in a minute more was on the Dutchman’s deck, flailing away like a perfect Wallace Redivivus. Many a head he broke, for he literally showered his blows like wintry rain.

He saved the marine captain’s life, although that sailor-soldier was severely wounded. It is almost unnecessary to say that, under the circumstances, Captain Jack Mackenzie forgave the gallant doctor for leaving his ship without permission.

But the toughest fight of all raged around Duncan’s flagship, the Venerable, when she tackled that of the Dutch admiral De Winter—namely, the Vreyheid. Just as in days of long, long ago the chiefs of opposing armies used to delight to single each other out and fight hand-to-hand, so did bold Duncan keep his eye on the Dutchman, and as soon as the battle had commenced he went straight for her. As he bore down towards her, however, the States-General presented a target that he could not resist, for she was stern on to the Venerable. Murderous indeed was the broadside Duncan poured into her, raking her from aft to fore. This vessel soon after left the battle ranks, with a loss of over two hundred and fifty killed and wounded.

And now the great tulzie commenced in awful earnest, for Duncan ranged himself up against the Vreyheid to the lee, while to windward of her was the Ardent. But three mighty Dutchmen came down hand-over-hand to the defence of their brave admiral’s ship. So fearful was the fire of these latter that Duncan’s ship would speedily have been placed hors de combat, had not others come to his rescue and restored the balance. But nothing could withstand the fury of Duncan’s onslaught; and at last, with every officer dead or wounded, the brave Dutch admiral hauled down his flag. Twice during the terrible combat had Admiral Duncan’s flag been shot away. It was then that bold Jack Crawford, whose name indicates his Scottish origin, wrapped the colours round his waist, and providing himself with nails and a hammer, climbed nearly to the main-truck and nailed the ensign to the mast.

Duncan received De Winter’s sword, and soon after the battle was over and the victory ours. A glorious day and a glorious victory, but, ah! how dearly bought. It gives us some faint notion of the pluck and go of our navy in those fighting days of old, to learn that the Ardent had her captain and forty officers and men slain outright, and no less than one hundred and seven wounded.

The scene in the cockpit during a fight like this is one that genius alone could graphically depict. The centre-ground of the picture is the big table, around which the surgeons are at work, stripped to their shirts, their faces stained, their hands and garments dripping gore. The whole place is filled with stifling smoke, through which the glimmering lights are but faintly seen; but all around are ranged the wounded, the gashed, the bleeding, awaiting their turn on the terrible table. You can hear them if you cannot see them—hear them groaning, sometimes even shrieking, in their agony; and the mournful call for “Water! water!” is heard in every lull of the fight or momentary cessation of cannon’s roar. And bending low as they move among them are the stewards and idlers of the ship, serving out the coveted draught. But down the blood-slippery companion-ladder come the bearers incessantly, carrying as gently as a Jack can their sorely-stricken messmates. Verily a sad scene! On deck war is witnessed in all its pomp and its panoply, on deck is honour and glory; the dark side is seen in the cockpit—the sorrow, the despair, the hopelessness, the agony, the death.