Collision

Chapter 1

14 January–10 February 1772

Southern Ocean 46° S

Not more than a musket shot ahead, the Marquis de Castries fell directly across the Mascarin’s path. Ensign André Tallec glanced over, his eye caught by the sudden movement. He stared in disbelief at the rapidly approaching ship. The two sailors casting lead lines from the bow of the Mascarin chanted their next soundings, but the young ensign barely heard them. Ignoring the slate and chalk in his hand, he called urgently to the officer of the watch: ‘Monsieur Crozet!’

One arm thrust through the foremast shrouds for balance, the collar of his greatcoat turned up around his ears for warmth, the Mascarin’s second-in-command had his eyeglass trained on the two mist-cloaked islands a few leagues distant. Alerted by the urgency in André’s voice, Monsieur Crozet looked towards the consort ship, then barked curses and orders in quick succession. ‘Quel diable? Stand by the topsail braces!’

As the petty officers relayed his orders and barefooted sailors ran to their stations, André and Monsieur Crozet continued to peer through the drifting veils of mist and sleet that once again obscured the larger ship to starboard. The Castries still bore down on them. She seemed to be making no attempt to alter her course.

‘Mort-diable!’ Monsieur Crozet exclaimed. ‘Does that imbecile not see us? Is he mad?’ He raised his voice. ‘Brace the topsails to larboard!’

André watched helplessly as the men struggled to get their own hove-to ship underway, even simple tasks hindered by ice-swollen ropes that jammed in the blocks and refused to run freely. The backed yards responded only slowly to the men hauling on the braces, but at last they swung across and the topsails started to draw. Above him on the quarterdeck, Monsieur Marion, their captain and the expedition leader, told the men on the wheel to hold steady as the ship began to move through the water, his voice calm as always amidst the shouting and frantic activity.

A little further along the deck from where he stood, André could hear the senior ensign, his cousin, maître and protector, twenty-five-year-old Jean Roux, muttering, ‘Allons, allons! Come on, come on! Sacré Dieu!’ Impatience darkened his cousin’s already swarthy face.

But their imperturbable captain waited until the Mascarin had gathered more way before he ordered the wheel thrust hard over. As the ship at last started to turn, André felt a hand grip his shoulder. He glanced at Monsieur Crozet, but the ship’s second-in-command was staring into the mist, seemingly unaware of the youth at his side, his long, angular face taut with tension. Monsieur Marion had judged the manoeuvre well, and their ship was already picking up speed. They could hear shouts from the other ship. On their own deck, men stood momentarily transfixed, gazing towards the mist-blurred menace now less than half a musket shot away. The ensign focused on the narrow wedge of grey water that separated the two ships, willing it to widen as the Mascarin turned away from danger.

For a brief moment, he thought they would make it; that the two ships would scrape by each other and avert disaster. But even as the thought formed, the beakhead of the Castries loomed out of the mist alongside them. Her long bowsprit swept along their starboard side like a jouster’s lance. Men scattered in all directions. Timbers graunched and squealed. Ropes parted and heavy blocks plummeted to the deck as the bowsprit cut through their mizzen rigging, then snapped off the Mascarin’s mizzenmast at deck level. The Castries’ bowsprit itself splintered into a jagged stump. Her foremast started to sway dangerously as its supporting stays parted—one severed by the loss of her bowsprit, the others torn away by the Mascarin’s falling mizzenmast.

The collision scarcely slowed the momentum of the larger ship. Flung to the Mascarin’s deck by the impact, the two ensigns and the second-in-command instinctively rolled into the larboard scuppers. André covered his head with his arms as the Castries’ bower anchor crushed part of the Mascarin’s starboard gallery, swept away the officers’ latrine, then demolished the poop taffrail. Amidst the chaos and the cries of the men, he distinctly heard the indignant cackle of the hens as several chicken coops disappeared over the side.

Almost before he had time to draw breath, the Castries shook herself free of the smaller ship and dropped astern. On board the Mascarin, men slowly picked themselves up from where they had fallen, checking themselves and their companions for injury. André untangled his long legs from the stockier ones belonging to his cousin Jean and scrambled awkwardly to his feet. He rubbed the knee that had taken the brunt of his fall. Only minutes had passed since his first shout of warning.

Beside him, Jean cursed quietly, a purple bruise spreading on his forehead, then asked, ‘Are you hurt?’

André shook his head, not ungrateful that the senior ensign still looked out for him, having taken him under his wing as his fidèle when he joined the Compagnie des Indes six years ago as an eleven-year-old apprentice. Jean clapped him on the shoulder affectionately, then picked his way after Monsieur Crozet, who was already crossing the cluttered deck towards the steps up to the quarterdeck.

A sudden shout drew André’s attention back to the Castries, now drifting astern. As he turned to look, the other ship’s unsupported foremast toppled. The man on lookout was flung from his perch in the foremast top. André watched in horror as he fell in an arc of flailing limbs, his thin scream cut off abruptly as he disappeared amidst the tangled heap of yards, sails and tackle that cascaded onto the deck. The ensign hastily crossed himself and muttered a brief prayer. Surely no one could survive such a fall?

For a long moment, the two ships seemed suspended in time, held motionless on the sullen sea. Then from their quarterdeck, the expedition leader took up his speaking trumpet and hailed the captain of the consort ship. ‘Monsieur du Clesmeur, report on board the Mascarin as soon as you have secured your ship.’

André was glad not to be in the shoes of the Castries’ young captain. Even before the collision, the expedition leader had commented unfavourably on various manoeuvres undertaken by the consort ship. The ensign thought it must be all the more galling for Monsieur Marion, as the owner of the Castries, to see his precious ship so mishandled. Their own vessel, the much smaller Mascarin, belonged to the King, on lease for this eighteen-month expedition that would take them from the Île-de-France off the African coast deep into the unknown Southern Ocean. It made little sense to him that the inexperienced twenty-year-old du Clesmeur could be entrusted with the command of any ship. But André’s more worldly cousin reasoned that being lumbered with Monsieur du Clesmeur was the price Monsieur Marion paid for the use of the King’s ship, and the young captain’s promotion was the result of the patronage and undeniable influence of his uncle, Governor of the Île-de-France and one of the expedition’s sponsors. No doubt, Jean added, the captain of the Castries considered himself the equal of any of their older and more experienced ex-Compagnie des Indes officers, being of aristocratic birth with a pedigree as long as his pompous name—Ambroise-Bernard-Marie le Jar du Clesmeur. The cynical Jean thought Monsieur Marion would have willingly made any concession necessary to get his expedition underway, the promise of fame and fortune accompanying the discovery of new lands and new outlets for trade in the Southern Ocean being sufficient recompense for any such imposition. The expedition leader must have decided that giving the young aristocrat the charge of his own ship, the Castries, was the lesser evil, seeing she was more seaworthy and less temperamental under sail than the King’s somewhat dilapidated smaller ship.

Now, as his heart rate slowed to normal, André gazed around him at the wreckage-strewn deck, realizing the young captain’s ineptitude had inflicted considerable damage on the King’s ship. He looked across at the disabled Marquis de Castries, drifting without its most essential spars. Monsieur Marion would not be appreciating the irony of his decision.

A few hours later, when some order had been restored to both ships, the consort’s yawl brought her captain and second-in-command across to the Mascarin. As the two officers came aboard, Monsieur Crozet beckoned André. ‘Vite, vite!’ he said. ‘Quickly now—go and tidy yourself, Monsieur Tallec. The captain needs you in the great cabin to take notes.’ He explained that the captain’s clerk, Paul Chevillard, had severely sprained his right wrist when the ships collided and could not hold a pen.

Below deck in the cramped gunroom, André changed into his spare pair of slightly cleaner breeches and the merchant seaman’s blue jacket he had already outgrown. He tried in vain to tug the sleeves down over his protruding knobbly wrists. Giving up, he ran his fingers through his unruly russet-red hair then retied the queue at the nape of his neck. The disconsolate Chevillard sat on the bench at the gunroom table, nursing his strapped wrist.

‘You lucky young pup, Tallec, I’d give anything to see Monsieur du Clesmeur try and explain this one away.’ He paused, then could not resist adding, ‘Mind you take particular care with your lettering.’

André held his tongue. Even if he were the best calligrapher in all of France, the captain’s clerk would find fault with his work. Of similar age and experience to Jean Roux, Chevillard jealously guarded his role. What was more, as a native of Poitou, he considered himself superior to Bretons—most of the men on board both ships—and was quick to criticize. It did not endear him to his two Breton fellow ensigns.

By the time the young ensign reported for duty, the senior officers of both ships were already seated on either side of the great cabin table. Monsieur Crozet, the Mascarin’s second-in-command, glanced up as André hovered in the doorway, then nodded towards a small side desk equipped with paper, inkwell and pens. The ensign settled down as unobtrusively as he could, then took in the scene as he sharpened a couple of quills.

Subdued light filtered through the wide stern windows of the great cabin. Its shifting patterns glimmered on the low deck-head above them, slid across the polished table then glinted briefly on the silver-chased hilt of Monsieur Marion’s dress sword. The two captains had dressed formally for the occasion, the expedition leader in his favourite blue velvet frockcoat with the matching waistcoat and breeches. The coveted gold cross of the Order of St Louis, awarded in recognition of his many exploits in the Seven Years’ War against England, hung on its red ribbon from his top buttonhole. Monsieur du Clesmeur, slighter in build than the expedition leader and fineboned, was of course wearing the splendid scarlet and gold uniform that gave the nickname of ‘red’ officers to the aristocrats who formed the Gardes de la Marine, the élite training corps for the King’s Navy. The ruffles of his fine linen shirt were on show at collar and cuffs, and he sported large gold buckles on his black shoes, gold lace on the three-cornered black beaver hat now laid carelessly on the table, and enough gold braid elsewhere on his person to rig an entire ship. Unlike Monsieur Marion and the other senior officers, who always wore the stiff wool wig favoured by sailors because its side rolls did not need constant attention, the young aristocrat had taken the time to have his wig of human hair freshly curled, pomaded and powdered.

To André’s secret satisfaction, the captain of the Castries seemed somewhat ill at ease, despite the elegance of his attire. He barely sipped the excellent Cape Burgundy poured by François, Monsieur Marion’s black Malagasy slave, before putting the glass down on the table. Monsieur Le Corre, the consort ship’s second-in-command, sat beside his captain, his own glass already drained. His massive thighs were spread wide to ease the binding of his tight breeches, and his faded blue Compagnie frockcoat was unbuttoned over his straining waistcoat. André caught him swapping a slight nod and sardonically raised eyebrow with Monsieur Crozet, his opposite number on the Mascarin, as the expedition leader put his own glass down and said briskly, ‘Now, gentlemen, I suggest we begin. Monsieur du Clesmeur, I await your explanation for the unfortunate manoeuvre that has brought our ships to such a sorry state.’

The young captain took his time. He stared down his long nose then took a pinch of snuff from his silver snuff box, ignoring the communal box placed in the centre of the table. When he finally spoke, his tone was haughty. ‘Surely, sir, the fault lies with the clumsy steering of the Mascarin? It’s unreasonable to expect my larger ship to have taken evasive action. We were hove-to, foresails aback…’

Ma fois, what nonsense, thought André, who had seen the Castries’ foresails fill as the ship turned towards the Mascarin.

Monsieur Le Corre intervened as the expedition leader raised his eyebrows. ‘Perhaps, sir, I can supply the explanation? Our captain had gone below at the time.’

Monsieur Crozet snorted, but the second-in-command of the Castries continued smoothly, ‘One of those williwaws swept off the land adjacent—our vessel was closer inshore than yours. We were caught unawares by the sudden violent gust of wind and fell immediately aboard your ship.’

‘So, you’re claiming there was no time to correct?’ Monsieur Marion sounded dubious.

‘In my opinion,’ said Monsieur Le Corre, ‘even a captain of your vast experience could not have averted the collision.’

André knew the Castries’ second-in-command was taking a risk with such a bold statement, even though—like the Mascarin’s Monsieur Crozet—he had known the expedition leader for years. All in their mid- to late forties, the three men had shared ships and experiences in the Compagnie des Indes and then as ‘blue’ merchant officers recruited into the King’s Navy during the recent war against England. The room grew quiet. The ensign could hear the click of Monsieur du Clesmeur’s carefully manicured fingernails as he tapped out an unconscious rhythm on the lid of his snuff box.

Monsieur Marion considered for a moment, then nodded slowly. ‘Fort bien. Very well.’ He looked across at the ensign sitting riveted in the corner. ‘Make a note, Monsieur Tallec, if you please. The incident is to be logged as an accident.’

André dutifully complied, thinking that Monsieur Le Corre’s explanation would seem inadequate even to the most inexperienced sailor. But as he put his pen down, the expedition leader added, ‘Your loyalty towards your captain is commendable, Monsieur Le Corre. Nevertheless, it needs to be said that a captain of my experience—as you put it—would not have taken his ship so close to high land under such circumstances. Unexpected downdrafts off such terrain are commonplace, are they not?’

Before the Castries’ second-in-command could respond, Monsieur Marion took a pinch of snuff himself from the communal box, blew his nose heartily, then pushed the snuff box towards him. ‘Let’s move on. I see you have your list there.’ He nodded to the attentive François to pour more wine.

As the officers helped themselves to snuff, André watched the captain of the Castries out of the corner of his eye. It was slowly dawning on him that the expedition leader had put Monsieur du Clesmeur firmly in his place. At the same time Monsieur Marion had, he now realized, subtly acknowledged the difficult position occupied by the Castries’ far more experienced ‘blue’ officer. For a moment, Monsieur du Clesmeur bristled, then visibly resigned himself to accepting the indirect rebuke without comment. The young aristocrat might be arrogant, but he was far from stupid. Even cousin Jean conceded that.

Monsieur Le Corre was already itemizing the damage suffered by the Castries, a stubby finger stabbing at each entry as he read out his list. André hastily jotted them down. One man killed on board the Castries when the foremast fell—the lookout—and three with fractures, all hit by debris as the mast fell. Although the ship’s hull had suffered little damage, she had lost two essential spars. Both her bowsprit and foremast and their associated rigging were now nothing but a tangled heap of flotsam, already cut away from the ship and set adrift.

Monsieur Crozet followed with the report for the Mascarin. Although the damage to the smaller ship was mostly confined to her stern superstructure, it was bad enough. ‘Our gallery’s stove in on the starboard side, sir, and the carpenters say our mizzenmast’s splintered beyond salvaging.’

There was silence while the senior officers contemplated their situation. They would need to make urgent repairs before they could risk venturing any further into the turbulent Southern Ocean. At best, both ships would be forced to make do with jury rigs, replacing their lost spars with spare topmasts—smaller and lacking the necessary strength to be effective if the gale-force winds they had already experienced should recur. As the brooding silence wore on, André understood from the glum faces around the table that any loss of sailing efficiency could prove their undoing. He swallowed uneasily. They were already a long way south of frequented waters, and therefore unlikely to encounter other vessels or find anyone to assist them. Even the Marquis de Castries, at seven hundred tons, suddenly seemed too small and too fragile a ship for this venture into a vast and unknown ocean.

From the hastily repaired taffrail of the Mascarin, André looked longingly at the still-visible coastline of the larger of the two islands. The sea was calmer than it had been for days, and this was the first land they had encountered since leaving the Cape of Good Hope a fortnight ago. They were still close enough for the ensign to see the line of bright surf fringing the shore. Whenever the mist cleared, he could make out several tiers of high snow-capped mountains rising behind green lower slopes. With land in view, his qualms about their vulnerability had soon been replaced by his more usual appetite for adventure.

Jean Roux joined him at the taffrail. ‘I was looking forward to being one of the landing party.’ His cousin was in a bad mood. ‘Monsieur Crozet says going ashore’s probably out of the question now.’

André was more optimistic. ‘Don’t lose hope. If the weather holds—’

‘Hope?’ Jean grimaced. ‘Monsieur Marion must regret naming that island Terre d’Espérance, Land of Hope—Land of Hope Dashed would seem more appropriate.’

André crossed himself. ‘Prenez garde, Jean! Take care! Saying such things is asking for more bad luck.’

For the next three days, both ships lay at a safe distance from the islands as the carpenters made what repairs they could. Apart from retaining one topmast to replace their own destroyed mizzenmast, Monsieur Marion sent his other spare spars across to the Castries. Heavy rain set in, making the work more difficult as the men handled the cumbersome spars and wet ropes, their fingers numbed with cold. They were enveloped in thick fog once more, but at least the sea was flattened by the persistent rain. The only sounds were the constant groaning of the ships’ timbers and the creak of gear aloft as they drifted under bare masts, rolling on a long swell.

Work stopped only to commit the unfortunate lookout to the sea, sewn up in his hammock and weighted with shot to prevent his body lingering on the surface as prey for sharks or predatory seabirds. The two ships lay close together in calm seas, their men mustered on the main decks. On board the smaller Mascarin, there was only room for the hundred ship’s people to assemble in the waist of the ship, so the forty-strong company of soldiers lined up on the forecastle. André stood on the quarterdeck with the other officers, their tricorn hats tucked under their arms, as across the water Monsieur du Clesmeur conducted the brief Mass for the Dead in front of his own one hundred men.

That evening, the ensigns joined the men gathered on the Mascarin’s forecastle while the musicians played their melancholy Breton tunes, the harsh fluting cry of the double-reed bombarde weaving an octave below the skirling drone of a biniou, the familiar sound eerily intensified by the fog. Monsieur Marion had ordered that the men receive an extra serving of wine, but the mood remained sombre. No one had the heart for their usual singing and dancing, and most of the sailors soon became sullen drunk. It was not long before André retreated to his hammock in the ensigns’ corner of the gunroom. He buried his head in his blankets, waiting for sleep to dispel the unwelcome thoughts Jean had stirred up once more—that Monsieur Marion’s expedition to the Southern Ocean was dogged by misfortune.

By the time the ships were seaworthy, they had drifted far from the islands. Rain and fog continued to beset them, and the weather remained bitter. Before they set sail, André was called again to the great cabin when the expedition leader met with the senior officers of both ships to decide how best to progress.

The captain of the Castries wanted to return to the islands and continue their interrupted survey. ‘We neglect our duty if we do otherwise, gentlemen. We’ve not truly ascertained the nature of the larger island. It may well be a promontory extending from the Southern Continent we seek.’ His fingers tapped once more on the lid of his silver snuff box.

Monsieur Crozet disagreed. ‘Returning would mean tacking closehauled to windward, Monsieur du Clesmeur. I’m far from convinced your ship’s makeshift masts would withstand the strain. That westerly is picking up strength.’

They listened to the whine of the rising wind in the rigging. Already, the sea visible through the stern windows was white-capped and rough, and the ship was beginning to pitch uncomfortably.

The expedition leader shook his head. ‘Monsieur Crozet’s right, sir—we can’t risk the stress to your ship of tacking against such a wind.’

Monsieur du Clesmeur was inclined to argue, somehow managing to imply by his over-polite language that such pragmatism—to be expected of unimaginative ‘blue’ officers—was in danger of impeding their ultimate goal; that only a ‘red’ officer of aristocratic birth could possibly understand the far-reaching implications of any decision they made.

Ignoring both the young aristocrat’s posturing and the responding bristling of his fellow ‘blue’ officers, Monsieur Marion made up his mind. ‘If we’re indeed off the coast of the Southern Continent, no doubt we’ll encounter land again by continuing eastwards along this forty-sixth parallel. These currents will carry us further into the Southern Ocean anyway.’ His tone becoming steely, he added, ‘Return immediately to your ship, Monsieur du Clesmeur, and prepare to set sail.’

André ducked his head to his paper and pen to hide his satisfaction as the captain of the Castries and his visibly smirking officers rose to their feet and prepared to leave the great cabin.

Over the next few days, the ships were driven south-eastwards under shortened sail. It soon became clear that the jury-rigged Castries, previously the faster of the two ships, could no longer keep up with the Mascarin. Progress was slow. When it was not blowing a gale, dense fog enveloped the ships and they had to fire the guns night and day to signal their respective positions—both to remain in contact and to avoid any further collision. Even at noon, André could not see the bow of the Mascarin from the quarterdeck, where he met with the other ensigns and Monsieur Crozet in mostly thwarted attempts to take sightings. As he fumbled with his sextant, chilled to the bone, the ensign was secretly relieved the horizon was usually too obscure for accurate sightings. His figures would fall far short of the standard expected by the second-in-command, who was known to be an excellent navigator, as good as Monsieur Marion himself. The difficulties of navigating in such weather added to the frustration of seeing almost daily the banks of seaweed, seabirds and seals that indicated they were not far from land. At night, their sleep was often disturbed by the shrill, unnerving cries of penguins swimming near the ship, sounding more like fractious infants than seabirds.

The only real excitement came late one afternoon when André, on watch in the mainmast top, noticed a wedge of brilliant whiteness on the horizon, gleaming under the lowering sky. In response to his holler, Monsieur Marion joined him in the top with his eyeglass.

‘Well spotted, Monsieur Tallec—it’s an iceberg, and a large one,’ the captain confirmed after examining the distant object. He handed André the eyeglass. ‘From its size, I’d conclude it’s been ejected from a substantial river.’

‘Meaning substantial land—the Southern Continent, sir?’ André asked, his excitement growing as he reluctantly returned the eyeglass.

‘D’accord,’ said Monsieur Marion. ‘But don’t get too excited. Such a large iceberg could’ve drifted many hundreds of leagues from its source.’

By seven that evening, the ships were within a league of the iceberg. Everyone crowded the rails as they sailed past. The descending sun suddenly emerged below the layer of grey cloud. The western side of the iceberg blazed a white so dazzling that André’s eyes watered whenever he tried to look at it directly. Huge caverns worn at sea level glowed a cold turquoise, which darkened to blue below the surface. Long after they had sailed on, and the iceberg’s silhouette had merged into the darkening night, he could hear the hollow boom of the waves as they rolled steadily into these caverns.

Although the weather did not improve and conditions remained foggy, they continued to catch tantalizing glimpses of land. Six days after leaving the collision site, they approached another island, large and mountainous. For the best part of a day and a night, the two ships tried to tack closer in a wind that blew offshore directly against them. Poorly clad in what was meant to be summer in the Southern Hemisphere, the ship’s people froze in their loose kneelength cotton trousers and inadequate short jackets. Although most had woollen bonnets and Monsieur Marion had them issued with knitted Guernsey frocks from the slop chest, few owned shoes or stockings. The men’s fingers were so numb with cold and their bodies wracked with shivering that their sluggish efforts meant the ships often missed stays and fell back onto the previous tack. Even when they succeeded in bringing the ships onto the opposite tack, they found it difficult to trim the sails to Monsieur Marion’s liking. The limitations of their adapted sailing rigs became only too obvious, and the shoreline remained stubbornly distant.

At the end of his deck watches, André stumbled below. By day’s close, he was too tired to eat the pannikin of lukewarm soup thickened with dried peas and crumbled ship’s biscuit that constituted supper. Even drinking his ration of wine seemed almost too much trouble. He draped his