Prison Ship Read online

  Adventures of a Young Sailor

  PRISON SHIP

  Paul Dowswell

  Contents

  Map

  Chapter 1 HMS Elephant

  Chapter 2 Enter the Admiral

  Chapter 3 The Battle of Copenhagen

  Chapter 4 Condemned

  Chapter 5 Dead Men

  Chapter 6 The Unspeakable Hulk

  Chapter 7 Over the Dark Blue Ocean

  Chapter 8 The Far Distant Land

  Chapter 9 On the Rocks

  Chapter 10 Friends and Enemies

  Chapter 11 Folly and Ruination

  Chapter 12 Exile in Exile

  Chapter 13 Fugitives

  Chapter 14 Friends Reunited

  Chapter 15 Who’s for Dinner?

  Chapter 16 Adam and Eve

  Chapter 17 Alone Again

  Chapter 18 Separate Ends?

  Fact and Fiction

  Some Notes on Sources

  Acknowledgements

  Also by Paul Dowswell

  To

  J & J

  the Morpeths

  and

  the Catons

  I went to sea to find adventure.

  I faced storms and battles, but nothing could

  prepare me for the journey which followed.

  Sent to the far side of the world for a crime

  I didn’t commit, I became a prisoner,

  thousands of miles from everything I knew.

  I was only fifteen.

  Map

  Chapter 1

  HMS Elephant

  It was half past three in the morning. I was lying in my hammock, gently swaying with the swell of the sea. Coarse woollen blankets kept me warm, as did the stifling fug of two hundred sleeping men, crammed down here on the lower gun deck of HMS Elephant. It reminded me of the clammy warmth of a stable packed with sheep and cattle.

  I had slept deeply since midnight; through the snoring, the sleep-talking, the hacking coughs that most of the crew had, even through the half-hourly chime of the ship’s bell. I was dreading the four o’clock bell. That would be when I would have to tear myself away from my comforting cocoon and face the raw, biting cold of the North Sea in winter.

  In blizzard and high winds the Navy still requires a man to climb frost-covered rigging, to haul himself above the deck while his hands turn blue and clumsy in front of his eyes, and to scrub the icy deck with the wind whistling through his meagre shirt and trousers. And who in his right mind would look forward to a trip to the heads, to sit in the open air, bare-arsed in a howling gale, as icy waves hurl freezing spray up around the bow of the ship?

  In these last calm moments before the day began, my thoughts began to drift. How lucky I had been to escape the wreck of the frigate Miranda when she sank off the Cornish coast by Pentherick. I still had only a hazy idea who had survived and who had perished, although I was grateful to providence for sparing my two great friends on the frigate, Richard Buckley and Robert Neville. I had rescued the ship’s cat Bouncer too, but left him with the landlord’s wife at the Royal Oak in Pentherick. It was a better life being a pub cat – plenty of fuss from the customers and plenty of scraps from the kitchen.

  I travelled to Plymouth with Richard and Robert the next day and we were sent at once by sea to Portsmouth and a new posting on HMS Elephant. As the three of us stood on the forecastle of the Portsmouth tender, a fierce wind whipped the clothes on our backs. I didn’t care. I was enjoying being a passenger and not having to concern myself with sailing the ship. Richard leaned over to Robert and shouted, ‘So tell us about this ship we’re heading for.’ As a midshipman Robert had been briefed about his new posting. Not us. As ship’s boys we were just expected to do what we were told, no questions.

  ‘The Elephant is a 74 – and most of those seventy-four guns are placed over two gun decks. So she’s quite a bit bigger than the Miranda.’

  ‘What size crew do we have?’ said Richard. He sounded wary. I knew how he felt. Neither of us had been on a ship bigger than the Miranda.

  ‘There’ll be around six hundred men aboard,’ said Robert. ‘She’s a ship of the line. As soon as we reach Portsmouth we’re to set sail for the Baltic. I’ve been informed that the Danes, Swedes, Russians and Prussians have all banded together against us.’

  My heart sank. ‘Why’s that?’ I said. ‘Isn’t it enough to be at war with France and Spain?’

  ‘Bounders are in a bate about our right to search their ships to see if they’re carrying goods for our enemies. We’re not at war yet,’ Robert said gravely, ‘but we might be soon. I wouldn’t be too worried about it. None of these fellows are a match for our Navy.’

  ‘These 74s,’ I said. ‘Are they more dangerous than a frigate?’

  Robert wondered. ‘I’d say safer. Frigates go looking for trouble on their own. A ship of the line goes out with the fleet, so there’s safety in numbers.’

  Our conversation was interrupted by another midshipman. ‘What ho,’ he said, barging past Richard and me to shake Robert’s hand. ‘You must be Neville. I was told you might be aboard. I’m Oliver Pritchard. I’ll be serving on the Elephant too.’

  With that he placed an arm around Robert’s shoulder and marched him away. I overheard him sneering loudly about ‘consorting with the lower orders’, an observation I’m sure we were intended to hear.

  The boy looked a year or so older than Robert, and was both taller and heavier. ‘Don’t like the look of that one,’ said Richard, as we watched the two midshipmen talking together on the opposite side of the forecastle. I had to agree. This Pritchard had a thin, mean face, and one eyebrow almost constantly raised in a challenge or a sneer. His whole body seemed to coil with a fidgety tension. I don’t think Robert liked him much either. He was standing slightly away from him, with a cool expression on his face.

  We didn’t talk with Robert for the rest of that short voyage to Portsmouth. It was a shame. We three all knew as soon as we reached the Elephant our easy friendship would have to end. He did pass me on the forecastle though. ‘Jumped up little twerp, that Pritchard,’ he said quietly. ‘I’d keep out of his way, if I were you.’

  We sailed into Portsmouth early on the morning of 22nd February 1801. It was a fresh winter’s dawn and when I first saw the Elephant the rising sun was glistening on the gold-painted figures that embellished the two great cabins at her stern. The Captain’s, on the upper deck, had its own balcony. Beneath it were the windows of the officers’ gunroom. I could picture their comfortable interiors and felt a twinge of envy when I imagined how our bare quarters would look.

  Robert read my mind. ‘We’ll make you an officer yet, Witchall,’ he said with a grin. ‘And you too, Buckley.’ Surnames in company, Christian names in private. It was a curious friendship the three of us had.

  ‘Not me, Mister Neville,’ said Richard. ‘I’ll be back in Massachusetts before I’m old enough to be an officer.’

  Although he was an American, Richard’s family expected the Royal Navy would give him the best apprenticeship for a life at sea. He was destined to command a ship, I was sure. I couldn’t imagine I was. Being a grocer’s son and a pressed boy, the best I could expect was to get out of the Navy alive.

  Close up, I could see how big the Elephant was. She sat high in the water with her two gun decks, and a quarterdeck raised above the upper deck. She looked like she packed a ferocious punch.

  Going aboard I was struck by the smell of the ship. Several days away on land had given my nose a rest from the sharp whiff of tar, pitch and gunpowder, and the low stench of wet wood, rank bilgewater and several hundred seamen. It took me straight back to my first fearful night on the Miranda.

  We went through the ritual of having our names entered into the muster book.
The ship’s captain, Thomas Foley, oversaw the proceedings. I liked him at once. He was around my father’s age and six foot in height.

  ‘I’ve heard reports of your gallant actions on the Miranda, Witchall,’ he said to me. Turning to one of the ship’s lieutenants he remarked, ‘Perhaps we have the makings of a midshipman here, Mr Mayhew.’

  ‘Carry on as a powder boy for now,’ said the Captain, ‘but we shall keep you in mind if a more suitable appointment presents itself. I’m placing you with Thomas Shepherd, James Kettleby and Vincent Thomas on the starboard afterguard watch. You’ll know them from your previous posting. Buckley can join you too. You’ll all be manning a quarterdeck carronade.’

  I couldn’t help but grin from ear to ear when I heard Tom and James had survived the shipwreck – although they were years older than me, they had been good friends on the Miranda. The towering Welshman Vincent Thomas was from that ship too. I didn’t know him so well – other than by my nickname for him, ‘Vengeful Tattoos’. His body was covered with fearsome Biblical quotations. It was good to have Richard serving in the same gun crew too. We could keep an eye out for each other. I wasn’t sure about being placed on the quarterdeck though. Being out in the open during a battle would leave us dangerously exposed.

  We met with Tom and James that dinner time. Hearing the two of them, chattering away in their Cockney and Geordie voices, took me straight back to the mess deck of the Miranda. Their faces lit up when they saw the two of us. ‘We ’eard you’d got away from the ship,’ said Tom. ‘Thought you might’ve slipped the cable, Sam!’

  ‘We both washed up close to Pentherick,’ said James. ‘Got whisked doon to the Elephant the next day, along with Mr Thomas here.’

  Vincent Thomas nodded. He seemed friendly enough.

  ‘Middlewych is here too,’ said Tom, ‘although he’s servin’ as a lieutenant, rather than first lieutenant.’

  Middlewych! I was pleased. The last time I saw him, he was trying to persuade some drunken sailors to take to the waters as the Miranda lay breaking up. He was the officer I liked the most.

  ‘Foley seems decent enough,’ I said.

  James said, ‘Aye. Foley doesn’t have to act severe. He’s proved his worth many times over. They say Lord Nelson thinks well of him.’

  I saw Middlewych on deck, supervising the loading of provisions. ‘Glad to see you alive, Witchall. I’m sorry I couldn’t secure you a better post on the Elephant, but the captain knows you’re a good lad.’

  This sounded promising. I had gone to sea for adventure and advancement that would never cross my path as the shop assistant or school teacher my father wanted me to be. What was it Captain Foley had said – ‘the makings of a midshipman’? And after that, a lieutenant! And to think how much I had resented being pressed into the Navy and how I had longed to escape. Now the prospect of becoming an officer was being dangled in front of my eyes.

  The five of us former shipmates were all happy to make up a mess, especially as we were now all together as a gun crew. The mess tables were stowed between the guns of the gun deck and set up only when it was time to eat. The gun deck was also where we would sling up our hammocks to sleep.

  Our table had room for six, with three on two benches either side. To make up the numbers we were joined that first evening by another seaman new to the ship named John Giddes. He worked as an assistant to the Purser. None of us would have chosen him as a mess mate, but the officer of the watch bluntly told us he was joining us. Giddes was a lanky, dark-haired man with a narrow face and sullen eyes. He was handsome, I suppose, but had the air of someone caught doing something he shouldn’t be.

  As we sat down for supper Tom turned and spoke to him. ‘Where you from, John?’

  ‘I’m from London, like you,’ he said.

  ‘Where abouts?’ said Tom, seizing on the opportunity to find out more about him.

  ‘Lived all over,’ he said. ‘Whitechapel, St Giles, Cheapside. Father was a cobbler.’

  ‘Where did he work?’ said Tom. ‘I never knew any cobblers with Giddes on the sign.’

  ‘Always worked for some else, didn’t he.’

  ‘How’d ye end up here?’ said James.

  ‘You’re a nosy lot, aintcha?’ he said. ‘If you must know, they took me off a merchantman bound for Liverpool.’

  That was the end of that. What an odd man, I thought.

  Talk turned to our duties on the carronade. Tom would be gun captain. Vincent Thomas would sponge out and load. James Kettleby would help move the gun. Richard would help him. Although only a year older than me, he was now judged strong enough to manhandle a cannon, especially a carronade as it was lighter than a long gun. As Powder Monkey I would be running to the ship’s magazine deep in the hold to fetch gunpowder when it was needed. Carrying a cartridge box that could blow me to bloody pieces made me shudder every time I thought about it. James added to my anxiety when he said, ‘Personally I’d rather be on the gun deck than the quarterdeck. I don’t like the idea of being oot in the open. We’re too much of a target, especially for any sharpshooters up in the enemy’s rigging.’

  ‘We’ll have to make do with the job we’ve been given,’ said Tom. He turned to me and told me more about our gun. ‘Carronades don’t have the same range as the long guns, so we use ’em when the ship’s up close to the enemy. They’re lighter and smaller so they’re quicker to reload. You’ll have your work cut out keeping us supplied with powder, Sam. It’s a long way from the quarterdeck to the after powder room, so you’ll have to run faster than ever.’

  Our meal finished we settled into uneasy small talk. Giddes was prickly silence. Vincent Thomas was cheery enough. He made me laugh as he chuntered along in a sing-song Welsh voice that didn’t quite go with his massive bulk. But I noticed James and Tom seemed reluctant to smile at his stories.

  That first day aboard the Elephant seemed a long time ago. Now we were four days into our voyage, pushing through the North Sea after leaving Portsmouth on the second day of March. The four o’clock bell I had been dreading tolled at last, followed by the shrill peep of the Bosun’s whistle. All around was frantic activity as we tumbled from our hammocks. My bare feet landed in a puddle of freezing water that had sloshed in through the gunports during the night. James had told me to expect this in rough weather as the deck was only five feet above the waterline. The shock of it brought me fully awake.

  Jack Tars are a hardy lot, but most of the crew were suffering from a wretched cough brought about by the cold. Many of these men had recently returned from the Mediterranean, and found this harsh weather a trial. They say Hell is burning hot, but its residents could just as easily be tormented by freezing cold.

  Our first duty was to chip from the decks the ice that had formed overnight. So far we had made most of the voyage through thick fog, and today it still showed no sign of clearing. Distracted from my work I peered over the rail and could see nothing ahead but a dense drifting mist. Perhaps this was what Monsieur Montgolfier saw when he flew his balloon into a cloud?

  ‘Bosun, start that man,’ barked Midshipman Pritchard, and one of the bosun’s mates stepped forward and hit me with his rope. I was so cold the blow barely registered on my numb shoulders, and really, I deserved it. I crouched down again on the deck and began chipping away with the chisel I had been issued.

  ‘Put your back into it Witchall,’ snapped Pritchard, strutting by in his thick woollen coat. He came up close and placed the toe of his boot over my hand splayed on the deck. He did not press down hard enough for it to hurt but it was a deliberately insulting gesture. ‘If I have to tell you again, I’ll have you flogged,’ he hissed. I’d been told that the ship’s Purser, Nathaniel Pritchard, was his father, and I wondered how far his influence had brought the boy a midshipman’s berth.

  When the decks were cleared of ice we were mustered to raise the anchors. It was exhausting work, especially with breakfast still three hours away.

  Soon after dawn I was called to adjust the
main royal and began to climb the rigging in the company of four of the topmen. I looked down on this vast warship, and the fraction of her crew who were scurrying to and fro about the deck. Despite all the hardship, and any lingering resentment about being pressed into the Navy, I felt a great sense of pride. The two hundred and fifty men on the Miranda might have made up a village. Here there were five hundred sailors and a hundred marines. The ship had its own chaplain, even its own band. I thought that six hundred souls must make us more of a small town. Robert Neville was right about feeling safer on a 74. She was formidable.

  I wondered how we would fare if we had to fight. Only the incessant cold took my mind off the battle we were sailing towards. I had been in combat barely two months before. Now when I heard the roll of the drum that called us to quarters I could vividly recall the stench of blood and gunpowder, and the screams of the dying. I wondered if this time it would be me who would be torn to pieces by chain shot or gutted in hand-to-hand fighting.

  Waiting for the order to drop the sail I strained my eyes towards the land, hoping to see a glimmer of light from a seashore cottage or even a town or village, but the fog was too thick. Close by, I knew, lay the coast of my home county Norfolk. I had heard we were near our assembly point at Yarmouth Roads, where the Royal Navy gathered its fleet to sail to the Baltic. This was as near as I had been to home since I was pressed the previous summer, and all at once I felt a great yearning for its familiar comforts and shelter. Far off in the darkness I heard the sound of cormorants calling to one another, and gannets and auks. Seabirds with nests by the shore. If I were one of them, I could fly in a straight line back to my sweetheart Rosie in Yarmouth, then still further north to Wroxham and home. If I were there now, I’d be tucked up in bed, instead of shivering up this mast, staring down at the grey waters crashing against the ship. The sea was cold enough to kill any man who fell into it in little more than a minute.