Gulf of Lions
by Paul Weston 13 Apr 02:35 UTC
Kasbah of the Udayas at the Entrance of the Bouregreg River, Rabat, Morocco © Paul Weston
In Gulf of Lions, the fourth book in Paul Weston’s historical naval series, Royal Navy Commander Snowden again takes his fast schooner, HMS Oleander, to the Mediterranean. His orders are secret, his mission - to support Spanish opposition to the Bonapartists - delicate and complex, but they give him wide discretion to act independently. Relishing his freedom, he uses Oleander to strike disproportionate blows against the French, but this and his previous actions in Corsica anger Napoleon, who orders the creation of a devastatingly effective defence.
Paul Weston’s fourth historical novel, Gulf of Lions, set in 1805, the year of Trafalgar and Austerlitz, reflects the wide ranging nature of the war against Napoleonic France, with Snowden taking Oleander into action from Brittany to Morocco. With its complex and plausible plot, the novel will please new and existing readers of Paul Weston’s work.
Paul Weston’s ability to weave a compelling narrative is greatly enhanced by his knowledge and understanding of the book’s locations – he has visited all of the places in Gulf of Lions by sea - and by his seafaring background. Gulf of Lions offers a plausible literary rendering of daily life in the Royal Navy in the early nineteenth century, its aggression and confidence, the latitude offered to relatively young men, and the organisation and science that lay behind it.
Historically accurate, this latest novel puts Paul Weston comfortably into the genre dominated by Alexander Kent, Patrick O'Brien, CS Forester and Dudley Pope, and will leave fans hoping for more of his seafaring adventures.
Perhaps the moment of inspiration for Gulf of Lions came when walking along a cliff near the Catalan port of Palamos. I saw a steep path leading from the rocks below, and thought “I could just imagine a beweaponed Snowden climbing up there in the dark.”
The novel is informed by several trips we made in our previous boat, Mitch, a 31’ motorboat, and our present one, Kadash, a 40’ aluminium lift keel sailboat. Though the book’s actions, such as the cutting out of a French privateer in Lezardrieux, or the attack on the Canal du Rhône à Sète are entirely fictional, the places are accurately described from the seaman’s perspective, as is the westward passage under sail through the Strait of Gibraltar, closely hugging the African coastline.
As in all my books, Gulf of Lions’ storyline is a product of imagining myself in historical situations, thinking how I would have fought historical wars. How would a young man, bred for aggression, motivated partly by prize money and in command of a fearsome weapon of war, react when presented with an anchored French privateer? How could the Malpas tunnel be attacked? How would the French react with their resources stripped by large scale warfare beyond France’s borders?
Synopsis:
Britain is at war with Napoleonic France, and Commander Snowden RN is sent to the Mediterranean in his fast cedar built schooner, Oleander. His secret orders, which set out a diplomatically delicate and dangerous mission to aid the opposition to the Bonapartist party in the Spanish government, give him considerable independence, which he exploits to great effect. His actions, however, are noticed by Napoleon himself, and galvanize an effective French response.
In this fast moving, historically accurate and complex novel, the author evokes the era of the Napoleonic wars, set as they were against the background of scientific progress and the nascent Industrial Revolution.
Where to buy Gulf of Lions:
Excerpt - Chapter 8 - “Lézardrieux and Oleander’s Revenge”
1805. Commander Lieutenant Snowden RN is under secret orders to take his ship, the schooner HMS Oleander to the Mediterranean. In Guernsey, the commander of the Channel Islands Station, Sausmarez, short of ships, asks him to land a passenger, a Chouan rebel, in the Breton port of Lézardrieux.
•••
In the gathering dusk, with a nearly full moon rising, Oleander slipped past the Roches Douvres, that fearsome plateau of tide-beset rocks. The westerly wind was light, and the coast of Brittany could be discerned ahead. Pascoe, aided by Luciani, was busy with his instruments, marking their position on the chart every few minutes, and from time to time looking at the tidal curve he had drawn on a large sheet of paper. Their destination, the Trieux estuary, was rocky and heavily tidal, a place that demanded the utmost respect. There was no room for mistakes.
With the men tense at their stations, under only the mainsail and a flying jib, with the longboat towing astern, Oleander swept silently forward on the last of the flood tide, with a dark rocky island, Bréhat, close to port.
Pascoe gestured ahead, to where an ugly looking rock rose from the water. Snowden could distinctly hear the suck of the sea around its base.
“La Croix, Sir.” He consulted his watch and the tidal curve. “It wants an hour to high water. We are just where we should be.”
“Well done Pascoe, you’ve judged it nicely.”
As the ship went further into the rocky estuary, Pascoe pointed to starboard.
“Île à Bois, Sir, where we’re to drop our passenger.”
Snowden turned to Trezeguet who was standing near him. “Are you ready …?”
At that moment, in the distance, they heard the sound of shouting, and a soft call came from the foremast top, a Bermudian voice, seemingly out of place in this dark Breton estuary.
“On deck there, there’s fires further up the river, and shouting … Music as well maybe, and shooting I think.”
Snowden peered forward and saw the orange glow of fires behind the darkly wooded hills at the side of the estuary.
“Trezeguet, I don’t think we’ll land you just yet, we’ll take the ship a bit further up to see what’s going on.”
Leaving Kennedy and Pascoe to con the ship, Snowden went forward with Trezeguet to where Luciani was standing on the cap rail, balancing on a forestay. The ship, her sails driving her slowly and silently through the water, was swept up the estuary by the last of the flood tide, the dark wooded bank of the western side very close.
The men at the forward guns, the huge Carrons, ghostlike in the moonlight, sat on the guns’ slides, the captains hunched over the barrels, occasionally sighting along them.
Trezeguet said, “The last bend before the town, Snowden.”
Iris at the crosstrees, looking over the low headland, called down softly, “The town, all lit up it is. Looks like a party.”
“En fête,” said Trezeguet. “Perhaps a saint’s day.”
There was another call from aloft, the man, Iris, clearly excited.
“A ship, a big one, moored in the river.” A pause. “Seen her before, I reckon.”
Snowden leaped for the foremast shrouds and scrambled aloft.
In the moonlight, the town, Lézardrieux, was visible, a few hundred yards from the sea, lit up by bonfires. Standing on the crosstrees he could see people in the wide main street and hear music. Occasionally there were small explosions, he thought probably of firecrackers.
In the middle of the stream, with her bow pointing towards the sea, a ship was moored, her yards glinting in the moonlight. A big ship, a warship.
“You’re right Iris, we have seen her before!”
“Where?”
In his best Bermudian Snowden replied, “In de Atlantic, bye, she be Blonde.”
Snowden’s heart raced with excitement. He was in command of a warship, a superb engine of destruction, honed to perfection. He had a skilled and disciplined crew, but he alone was responsible for the ship, and her success largely depended on him. He had been at sea almost continuously since he had joined the Navy as a boy, was a veteran of warfare conducted on a global scale, and the traditional aggression and confidence of the Royal Navy was deeply ingrained in him, as was the Service’s lust for prize money. And he was a young man, without the caution that age often imparts.
He slipped down the rigging and ran aft along the deck. The flood tide was slackening and the ship was moving slowly. There was not much time.
“Ken”, he said, urgently, “you asked if we had prospects this trip, and there is your prospect”, gesturing to the moored ship. “She’s the Blonde. Remember her? Gave us a mauling off Bermuda.”
Blonde was a big Malouine privateer, much feared by merchantmen, which had nearly defeated Oleander a few days out from her shipyard in Bermuda. Snowden presumed that she had opted to refit in Lézardrieux, rather than St Malo, which was closely watched by the British.
“But Sir”, said Kennedy, lust for prize money tempered by caution, “she’s a big bastard. Packs a punch too, as I recall. Nearly had us last time.”
“They’re all ashore”, said Snowden with more confidence than he felt, “at the village fête. Here’s what we’re going to do …”
•••
The Trieux was narrow, and although the privateer was moored only a hundred yards or so off the town quay, Oleander was apparently unnoticed as she passed the darkened ship to starboard.
The river was wider here, but still a tight place for Oleander to work herself round in. Everything depended on the next few minutes.
“Now, Ken,” said Snowden, almost conversationally.
Kennedy, who had been anxiously awaiting the order, turned and said, “Down your helm, Quartermaster.”
Then “Let fly your jibsheets.”
“She’s answering nice, Sir,” said the quartermaster as he watched the ship’s bowsprit sweep across the dark background of the land, slowing as her head came into the wind and the mainsail flapped once, twice. For an agonising moment she lingered in irons, the mainsail flogging.
Kennedy, judging the moment, shouted, “Weather jibsheet.” Men tramped along the deck, hauling the sail aback. Snowden heard Kennedy urging her round, patting the rail. “Come on, my darling, you can do it.”
Oleander, as though she heard Kennedy’s entreaty, fell off on the port tack, but her momentum had taken her close to the town quay. The noise of the flogging mainsail had obviously been heard ashore, as there were shouts from the land. Snowden could not make out the words, but they did not appear to be hostile.
“Haven’t seen the ensign, though it’s plain as a pikestaff in this moonlight,” said Kennedy softly, and then as the shouts ashore grew in volume, Snowden heard the word ‘Anglais’.
“They have now,” he said. “Let’s keep ’em honest.”
The port Carron fired, immensely loud, sending grapeshot hissing into the water. The orange flash lit up the people on the quay ashore, who ran for cover, though they were safe enough, out of the gun’s range.
As the ship slowly gathered way, Kennedy looked at the privateer, black and sinister in the moonlight, judging distances.
“Back her now,” he shouted, and as men pulled on the braces, the wind pressed the square fore tops’l against the mast, slowing the ship.
Snowden ran to the rail, where a boarding party of marines and sailors crouched, ready.
Blonde was very close now, her hull towering above Oleander. Snowden saw that some of her gun ports were open, no doubt for ventilation.
“Marines through the ports,” he said to Watton, who stood beside him, his young face white in the moonlight. “Sailors with me to the deck.”
Oleander’s starboard side crashed into Blonde’s port side, to the accompaniment of the sound of splintering wood.
Snowden shouted, “Ken, be gentle with her”, eliciting a ripple of laughter.
The great mainsail fell to the deck, the Carron fired again, and Snowden saw grapnels thrown from Oleander, hooking over rails on the privateer. He grabbed a rope, tested it, yelled “Come on boarders, up we go”, and then he was climbing up the side of the privateer. He reached an open gun port, saw a movement inside and swung himself feet first through the port, just as the gun fired, throwing itself back against its ropes, deafening him and half blinding him with the flash. He felt himself roughly kicked forwards by the next man through the port, landed more or less upright on the privateer’s gun deck, fired his pistol at a vague shape, and threw himself forward through the smoke, cutlass swinging, slashing at dimly seen figures, parrying blows aimed at him. Resistance slackened and, vision returning, he saw men around the next gun aft. He ran towards it, uncaring whether his men followed, arriving at the gun as the gun captain was about to put his match to the hole. Snowden shouted “Stop!”, the gun crew turned, saw him with Oleander’s men around him, and raised their hands in surrender.
He saw no one else on the gun deck as he raced aft and threw himself up the companionway, meeting Watton near the helm. Marines were guarding a group of prisoners, men and women, who were sitting on the deck around the mainmast.
“I thought you were going in through the ports,” he said.
“And I thought you were going onto the deck, Sir.”
“A fair point, Mr Watton, well done.”
Luciani arrived with a group of Corsican sailors.
“Secure below, Sir.”
“Very good. Get the hawser on her, men aloft with axes.”
“Aye aye.”
He turned to Watton. “Guard on the powder room?”
“Already done, Sir.”
He looked over the stern of the privateer, where several small boats were tied up.
“Get all the prisoners into the boats. They can make their way ashore.”
“Aye aye, Sir.”
Snowden grasped a grapnel rope and swung himself back onto Oleander’s deck. Kennedy stepped forward to meet him.
“She’s yours, Ken,” he said, pointing to Blonde. Kennedy touched his forehead in acknowledgement, grabbed a grapnel line and rapidly climbed aboard the privateer. The tide was turning, beginning to ebb, and Blonde tugged at her sternline. Snowden knew that in a few minutes the stream would be so strong that their opportunity would be missed. He went to the bow of Oleander and shouted over to Kennedy, who was supervising the securing of the hawser to the privateer’s bitts.
“I’m getting her underway.”
“Aye, Sir, tide’s turned. I’ll cut the sternline as soon as the hawser’s taut.”
At that moment there was the sound of a cannon fired from ashore and a ball thudded into Oleander’s side
Snowden shouted, “At the flash, Guns.”
And then, “Poore, let draw the fore tops’l, get the foresail on her.”
The great foresail was raised and sheeted home. Oleander’s broadside fired, one gun at a time, but Snowden did not pay attention to the fall of the shot. The shore gun fired again, hitting the bulwark of the privateer and sending splinters whizzing across the deck, and he heard a man cry out, but under the force of her sails and the tide, Oleander was moving forward along Blonde’s side. Seamen aboard the privateer shouted, bracing the ship’s yards round fore and aft, and men scrambled aloft with axes, ready to cut Blonde’s rigging free of Oleander’s embrace.
He saw Kennedy on the privateer’s deck, gradually paying out the slack in the towing hawser, and as it tightened, water squirting from its strands, he saw men hacking at Blonde’s sternline and anchor cable. Oleander, smaller than Blonde, almost stopped as the load came on the hawser, and she turned away from the wind, pivoting round the tow rope.
Snowden shouted, “Let fly foresail sheet, clew up the tops’l. Up with the mainsail, in tight, now.”
Men ran on the deck, and cast off and heaved in ropes, while Oleander hung at right angles to the estuary, swept down by the ebbing tide towards a reef, the Donan Roc’h, which protruded into the channel. A jolt ran through Oleander, and they heard, from deep within the ship, a crashing sound, but the ship did not pause, and her sails gradually brought the ship under control, the huge privateer following dutifully in her wake.
“Donan Roc’h,” said Poore. “Nasty.”
The Carpenter appeared and spoke to Snowden.
“It was the keel that hit the rock, not the planking, Your Honour, probably a bit taken out of it. It hasn’t started any seams as far as I can see, and she’s making no water. We build ’em good on t’Island!”
“Thanks, Chips.”
The ships continued downstream until Poore pointed to a point of land ahead.
“I saw a glint of something there, Sir.”
Snowden looked, saw nothing, but Iris, sharp-eyed Iris shouted from the foretop, “Deck there, gun on the land, two points larboard bow.”
The gun ashore fired, but Snowden did not see the fall of the shot, and soon Oleander was wreathed in smoke from her own broadside replying, the land rushing past as the tide swept the ships down the estuary.
Pascoe came up, his personal compass round his neck, chart in hand.
“Sir, there’ll be a fierce west-going tide at the entrance. Best to keep her as close to Croix and Bréhat as we can.”
Snowden knew there was a danger that the slow-moving ships, almost without steerage way, could be set by the current onto the horrible plateau of rocks on the west side of the entrance.
“Very well, Pascoe, do what you can.”
He looked astern towards Blonde and, to his relief, saw her fore topsail break out and belly as it was sheeted home, and unthinkingly grabbed Pascoe and turned him to look aft.
“Look at that, Pascoe, Kennedy’s getting sail on her.”
In a few minutes, Blonde was sailing, the strain on the towrope reduced.
“She be steering better, Your Honour,” said the helmsman.
Snowden turned to Pascoe, “Where’s Poore?”
“He was hit, Sir, that last gun from ashore. Splinter.”
The bosun came up to the helm.
“Blonde’s sailing, Sir. I was thinking …”
Snowden knew what he was going to ask – should they release the towrope? At that moment, there was a cry from below, and Rubert said, “I think Mr Kennedy has just cast off, Sir, I’d best get that hawser in.”
He hurried off, and Snowden saw, in the moonlight, Blonde under her topsails and mizzen, a white wave beginning to foam at her bow. Well done, Kennedy, thought Snowden, you’ll have your day of glory.