Dewey Lambdin - H.M.S. COCKEREL
Elphinstone had sent a demand for St. Mien to surrender, and had warned that any vessel which did not enter Toulon 's inner basin, land its powder and send its crew ashore, would be taken under fire.
That was enough for St. Mien. His honour had been satisfied, by token resistance, so he had decamped. And now, Admiral Hood could sail in. Without a shot being fired, without a single casualty, they were in total possession of a French city, an entire French fleet, and a naval base with all its arsenals, powder mills and stocks, foundries for cannon and anchors, and immense quantities of naval stores.
"Hard to think of us taking all this, even were we fifty sail," Mister Dimmock spoke up, nodding to the Marine captain. "First, weather Cape Sepet, as we've done. And it's simply stiff with guns. There, young sirs-" he pointed out to the midshipmen with a ferrule in his hand, as they gathered about for a lesson-"near the end of the peninsula, on the highest hill of Cape Sepet, that's… what, Mister Spendlove?"
"C… Croix des Signaux, sir."
"Aye, the signals cross. That's fairly new. Semaphore tower." Dimmock beamed his approval. "The old one, the Great Tower, is further inside the harbour, near Fort La Malgue. Now, below Croix des Signaux, there's Batterie la Croix, north shore of the peninsula. Then west of that, there's Batterie des Freres… 'The Brothers'… go farther west and you come in range of Fort Mandrier, which commands the south side of the Great Road, next to the Infirmarie… sort o' like our Greenwich Naval Hospital back home, 'cross an inlet from Fort Mandrier, just at the thinnest shank of the peninsula, facin' the Golfe de la Veche. Mister Dulwer, would you anchor in the Bay of Toulon, sir?"
"Uhm… perhaps not, sir? Not all the time?"
"Don't sound too definite, will ye now, Mister Dulwer?" the sailing master sighed. "No, ye'd not. Too deep for the proper scope on cables, e'en do you weight 'em with gun barrels, and a rocky bottom. Levanter comes up, it throws a heavy sea from the east'rd, crost all that open water from Plage de la Garonne. Plage means beach, right, lads? Right. Now, between Batteries Croix and Freres, it's no more'n one sea mile to Cape Bran, on the north shore of the mainland. Batteries there, too… with forty-two-pounders. North tip o' Cape Sepet and Cape Brun squeeze in to mark the entrance to the Great Road. You have a little more shelter in the Great Road. It's still foul holding ground, but shallower'n the bay. West of Cape Bran, there're batteries on a high cliff, on this spit of land… here," he said, indicating the chart. "Can't rightly see it from the quarterdeck… all our fleet in the way, ha ha!"
The midshipmen made sure to sound appreciative of Dim-mock's jape.
"Then to the west of those batteries is Fort La Malgue, which we took this morning, on another steep headland. Little water-fort guards the foot of it, Fort St. Louis. West o' La Malgue, there's this peninsula… long, narrow, and steep, almost vertical cliffs. Great Tower on its tip, where it juts southerly, and pinches off the Great Road from the Little Road. Guns a'plenty there, too, mind. This narrow pass, not half a sea mile, from the Great Road to the Little. Le Goulet, Frogs call it… that's the Gullet, in real language. Across the Gullet is where the Frogs tried to make a stand this morning, northern side of the Golfe de la Veche, on Hauteur de Grasse. Big, round hilly thing just on our bows if ye care to look. Two little spurs on its tip. Southern has Fort de Balaguer… the northern Fort L'Eguillette. Lower than La Malgue, so we could've shot howitzers or mortars into them. So that's why the Frogs took French leave, ha ha!"
Another wave of laughter swept the quarterdeck, more sincere this time, over Mister Dimmock's pun, including the officers and seamen.
"The Little Road. Would you anchor there, Mister Dulwer?"
"Aye, sir," Dulwer shot back quickly.
"Aye, ye would," Dimmock agreed. "Very sheltered, fairly shallow. On the small side, though. Get out of the shallows along the shore and you don't have much room to swing. Maybe three or four ships may lie in the Little Road. Sou'west end, that's La Seyne… civilian harbour, so they take most of the available space. More batteries, unfortunately. Coverin' La Seyne is Fort Crayon. A very low shore battery in an inlet north of there is Dubrun. Then another, on the north side of the Little Road, that's Le Millaud. Powder mills there, too, I recall. Atop them all, west of town, above these marshes, is Fort Mal-bousquet, then Fort Missicy, at the foot of this other hill, below Malbousquet."
"So… where do they really keep their ships, Mister Dim-mock?" Spendlove asked, squirming with either boredom or confusion.
"Do you get past all this, into the Little Road, sir, you come about, hard t'starb'd and sail north. Through the pass in the channel booms… log and chain, stout as anything… and there's the Basin of Toulon. They can cram up to thirty sail of the line in there t'gether, bows or stern-to the quays, as most do in the Mediterranean. Fenders betwixt, so they won't chafe their gunn'ls off. Walk all day in shade along the quay, below their bowsprits… Not a stone's throw from warehouses and such. But…" Dimmock warned with a theatrical pause, "… to get into the basin, there's one damn-all tough nut still to crack, young sirs. There's the jetties, the breakwaters that make the basin. They're built so low to the water, it'd be like hitting a piece of driftwood. Laid out in a fleur d'eau… the very worst sort of coastal fort. They're hollow and bombproof, and stiff with guns. Entrance channel isn't a musket-shot wide, with forty-two-pounders to either beam. And the town's like an old king's castle. City walls are like a fort, with moats and drawbridges and gates… part of it they call Fort de France. And above it all… look up yonder, behind the town, sirs. Eighteen hundred feet high, that chain of hills are. A ravine on the nor'west… Gorge St. Antoine, and another narrow valley north. Steep, crumbly stuff. There's forts all over up yonder… with ovens for heating shot, high 'nough for accurate plungin' fire."
"What an effort they put into this place," Lieutenant Clement Braxton commented, with a whispery whistle of awe. "Marshes… seepy springs, I've read, everywhere one looks. And no low tides to give them time to dig or lay foundations. It's an engineering masterpiece."
"Aye, Mister Braxton, yer correct, sir," Dimmock agreed heartily. "Can't wait to get ashore an' look it over, myself. East side of the basin, they keep the lesser ships o' war, frigates and such. Shipyard and launchways, graving docks. And there's a drydock that'd rock you back on your heels, too. Brute of a thing. Think of how they managed to build that, sir! Seal it, and pump out with convict labour, I think. Aye, sir… Toulon mayn't be the world's best harbour t'lie in, but… it's the world's most fortified, and most impressive built! Well, end of yer geography lesson, lads. Back to your stations. We're sure to come to anchor before the hour's out."
"From the sea and the land," Lewrie commented, coming to join them as the midshipmen scattered. "Hellish fortified."
"Better for us, when it comes to holding it, sir," Captain O'Neal agreed.
"Nine fath'm! Nine fath'm t'this line!" a leadsman called from the larboard foremast chains. Cockerel drew three fathoms, when deep laden.
"Steady as she goes, quartermaster." "Aye, aye, sir, steady'z she goes."
A weak sun shone that day, for a wonder, as if in celebration of their bloodless victory. Quite unlike the weather of their short blockade, which had shipped green seas, and gale-force winds at times, scattering the squadrons and straining their masts nigh to snapping. Watery, wan sunlight reflected from the charcoal blue sea of the Great Road, wave-motes of light dancing on the sides of the massive warships, and dun sails and dull colours were stage-lit to an artist's whiteness or sheening brilliance, as if posed for a commemorative oil.
During those rare moments of clear weather, Southern France had appeared rather attractive, Lewrie'd thought; much like Naples, though, in rockiness and semi-sere harshness. Whenever they'd gone close inshore, he'd espied hamlets and fishing villages that seemed cheerful enough. And, on the slopes of Southern France, there was a softer and lusher palette of greens than Naples could ever boast, more verdantly bright, less dusty and muted. From high summer, thatchy tan to spring-shoot green, the grasslands, vineyards and forests, olive groves and pastures seemed to roll and tumble as they were brushed by some bright scudding clouds' shadows.
Apart from Toulon, where sunlight dappled and sparkled, and the clouds scudded, the headlands and hills appeared to glow gold and umber, the tiled terra-cotta roofs were lit flamine red, and the very least cottages of Var and Provence were exotically lambent.
But not Toulon.
Around Toulon there seemed a pall, an ominous trick of lighting, as if the capes, the headlands, the bays and massive hills-mountains really, Lewrie decided-were shrouded by a funereal gloom, as if some storm clouds must hang perpetual. As if, for some malevolent reason, her harsh greyness of stark granite forts was forever deprived of any warmth, or hope, of Mediterranean sunshine. Pent from the lushness of her hinterland by grimly looming, bare and lifeless mountain masses, and begirt with the sinews and engines of warfare.
With the ship well in hand in a deep-water fairway, Lewrie took time to peer at the chart Mister Dimmock had left tacked to the traverse board, looking past his usual sailor's concerns of depths, bearings and seamarks, to the hills beyond.
Toulon was girded by a host of lofty fortresses and redoubts: St. Antoine, St. Catherine, Artigues, Pharon, La Garde and La Vallette, and a myriad of lesser forts, redans, batteries and strongpoints which guarded the forbidding mountains, the narrow valleys between, and the passes and gorges. The terrain was fairly open to the east, sprinkled with villages and chateaux, gently rolling and benign along the Plaine de la Garde divided by a narrow ridge that ran west-to-nor'east above the road to Hieres, before the mountains shouldered into the coast, above Forts St. Catherine and La Malgue.
On the western approaches, from the pass at Ollioules through which the Marseilles road debouched, was a harsher coastal plain, this one puckered, pimpled and stippled with many mountain spurs, crab-like hills and rugged prominences, and the roads wound snake-like to conform to them.
Fifteen miles, he marched off with a pair of brass dividers on the chart; fifteen miles of perimeter and approaches which had to be garrisoned and guarded, manned with troops and guns, if the coalition was to hold Toulon.
Say Naples sends their promised 6,000, like the treaty said, he speculated-though what little he'd seen of Neapolitan troops, and that with an untrained sailor's eye, hadn't impressed him that much. And were their Military Commissariat anything like what Mister Husie had reported after visiting their naval supply establishment, then it was perhaps a cut above a barking shambles. But not by much.
Sardinia, they're down for 50,000 men-say we get a tenth of that army we're paying good golden guineas for. Spain, of course…?
Why of course! he snickered to himself, still amazed that they were now firm allies. Correction-just "allies." Just this morning, the Spanish fleet had come up over the horizon at last, like a Jack-in-the-Box, rushing in untidy order to enter harbour at the same time as the Royal Navy. Troops aboard, he wondered? Sure to be. Have to be!
