Rocks and Shoals by Chris Durbin

Author:Chris Durbin [Durbin, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Independently published
Published: 2020-05-15T22:00:00+00:00

16: The Admiral’s List

Saturday, Twenty-Eighth of July 1759.

Medina, at Anchor. The Basin, Saint Lawrence River.

Ten days had passed since Carlisle had towed the frigate Diana from under the French guns of the citadel. She’d gone now. Her damage was too extensive for anything but a quick fix, enough to get her downstream and south to Boston convoying a couple of dozen American supply ships. There she’d be made safe for a transatlantic passage and so home to England with the season’s mast ships. The Portsmouth yard would no doubt declare that nothing short of a great refit was needed. Diana’s people had cheered as they sailed away. With a bit of luck, the frigate would be paid off in Portsmouth, and if they weren’t turned over to another ship, and if they could evade the press, they could see their homes again. Even if they were drafted directly into another ship, there was a good chance of a week or two of leave. There were many envious sailors in the squadron who didn’t return the cheer but watched stony-faced as the convoy sailed away down the South Channel.

It had been largely a time of waiting as General Wolfe’s army considered its options. Medina’s damage had been repaired by her own carpenter and his crew. The shot holes in the hull had been fixed with scarfed-in planks, and all the seams had been caulked. The frigate was watertight, and the pumps were only in use for ten minutes in each watch. Ten minutes was no hardship for Medina’s crew, it was more of a pleasurable burst of exercise to blow the cobwebs away after their off-watch sleep. Nevertheless, Carlisle was becoming concerned about the state of his command. It was many months since she’d had the services of a King’s yard and her last careening was at Hampton Roads in December.

‘Take your seats, gentlemen,’ he said as the carpenter, the bosun and the gunner filed into the great cabin. Moxon and Hosking were already there, and the subject of the meeting had set a sombre tone.

‘You first, Chips.’

‘Well sir,’ the carpenter scratched his head. He always scratched his head before offering any kind of opinion. ‘As you may have guessed, it’s not such a rosy picture.’

He described the state of the ship’s structure in depressing detail. Medina had been out of the builder’s yard only three years, but in that time she’d suffered as much damage in battle as most ships would see in a long lifetime. Until now, none of it had been severe enough to warrant a refit, but it was the repair on top of repair that was weakening her. There were butt ends where there should be continuous planking and scarfs that rested upon fractured knees. The spirketing, often ignored in any structural survey, had suffered badly and was by the carpenter’s own admission a bodged job in many places.

‘My fear, sir, is that a butt-end will spring at a time when we can’t get to it, or one of the scarfs will fail.

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