A Sacrifice of Pawns

PRELUDE THE ISLAND OF MARTINICO, CARIBBEAN SEA June 1761 With her flag of truce limp under the brassy sun, HMS Temple sat off Fort St Pierre, Martinico. As the heat bubbled the pitch between the pristine planking, Temple’s crew stood on deck, studying the fort with its batteries of cannon and white-uniformed garrison. It was seldom that a British ship came so close to a French stronghold without firing, and the officers and men of Temple resolved to record every last detail of the enemy fort. It was June 1761, and the war between His Britannic Majesty, King George III of Great Britain and Ireland, and King Louis XV, Louis le Bien-Aimé, the Beloved of France, had dragged on since 1754. What had started as a minor Colonial dispute in the backwoods of North America had spread across the globe to Europe, the East Indies, and the Caribbean. “There’s the captain going ashore,” said Foretopman Harry Squire, tipping back his straw hat as the captain’s barge eased from the stern. Captain O’Brien sat erect in the stern beside a smart young midshipman. “I don’t trust these Frenchies!” Daniel Tait was a native Jamaican, a free black man who had joined Temple when the warship berthed at Kingston earlier that year. “They are too friendly with the Spanish for me.” He shook his head. “I hope the captain is safe.” Squire nodded at the ranked cannon on Temple’s main deck, with the gun crews standing ready. “The captain is under a flag of truce to negotiate an exchange of prisoners. Not even the Frenchies will break a truce.” “I don’t trust the Frenchies,” Tait repeated. “La Touché, the governor of Martinico, is a gentleman,” Squire insisted. “He’ll keep his word.” Both men wore the ubiquitous clothes of the British seaman, the white cotton shirt with horizontal coloured stripes—red in Squire’s case, blue in Tait’s—a dark blue neckerchief, and white canvas trousers. While Tait wore low shoes—“purser’s crabs”—Squire was barefoot, and both had seamen’s knives attached to their belts. “Ship ahoy!” The hail came from aloft, where a lookout was permanently on watch. “Where away?” the lieutenant of the watch bellowed. “Just breaking the horizon to the west, sir!” the lookout replied. “Two vessels! One is Bienfaisant, and I don’t know the other!” Grabbing the telescope from its bracket on the mizzenmast, the lieutenant scrambled up the ratlines to join the lookout. Perched eighty dizzying feet above the deck, he extended the telescope and focussed on the distant sails. “That’s Bienfaisant, right enough,” the lieutenant said. “I think she’s captured a French prize, the lucky bugger!” “Is that lucky?” Tait was not yet fully cognisant of the ways of the Royal Navy. “Yes, Taity,” Squire said. “If you capture a ship, it can be sold, and the captain and crew get a share of the profit after the admiral takes his whack.” “Lucky bugger,” Tait agreed. They watched as HMS Bienfaisant escorted in her prize, a wave-battered sloop with patched sails and a deck packed with artillery. At her stern, the Union flag hung above the white-cross-on-blue ensign of France, a sure sign she was a prize of war. “She’s a privateer or I’m a Dutchman, although she wears a merchantman’s flag,” Squire said. “She carries too many guns for an honest merchantman.” Tait studied the captured vessel with calm eyes. “In Jamaica, we call the privateers freebooters,” he said. “Or pirates.” “You won’t be far wrong, Taity.” Squire produced a wad of tobacco, bit off a chunk, and handed the rest to Tait. “Pirates and privateers are much the same in these waters.” Both men knew that privateers were privately owned vessels with an official licence that empowered them to attack the enemy shipping. Fighting for profit more than patriotism, privateers often crossed the border into piracy, attacking even neutral vessels. Some had earned an unenviable reputation for violence and cruelty. As Tait and Squire watched, an eager lieutenant on the prize ship ushered half a dozen prisoners onto a yawl. Grinning Royal Navy seamen shoved them into the centre of the boat and manned the oars. Within a minute, the yawl was powering towards Temple, with the prisoners scowling at the British warship. “Here come the first of the Frenchies,” Squire said. “All hands!” the first lieutenant of Temple roared, and Squire and Tait joined the others in mustering on the main deck. In response to bellowed orders, a file of Marines waited to escort the prisoners below decks until they could be exchanged for British seamen held by the French. Squire nodded at one of the Frenchmen, a tall, handsome man in an ornate coat. “A golden guinea to an Irish sixpence that’s the captain.” Tait looked and stepped back. “That’s a bad man,” he said, shaking his head. “He looks very debonair in his fancy coat,” Squire said, still chewing on his tobacco. “The devil is in that man,” Tait said. As the French boarded Temple, the tall Frenchman stopped at the entry port with its elaborate carvings of Neptune. He looked across at his sloop, now a sad sight, and at the flag of truce drooping from Temple’s stern. “Flag of truce!” he shouted the words in high passion, and although he spoke in broken English, Squire understood the meaning. “The British took me in a flag of truce!” He drew a small knife from his belt and, with a dramatic gesture, he carved a cross in his forehead. “What the devil?” Squire made to step forward until the second lieutenant ordered him back to his place. The French captain stood still, ignoring the shouts and pointing bayonets of the scarlet-coated Marines. Blood from his cut seeped down his nose to drip onto the deck. “You took me under a flag of truce!” the Frenchman shouted. “You broke the rules of war. For that, I will wage raw war on you and your ships. There will be no quarter!” He raised his voice to a near scream. “No quarter!” When the Marines ushered him forward, the Frenchman replaced his knife, bowed to the first lieutenant, and followed his men. “Who was that?” Squire asked. “Captain René Roberval,” one of the escorting seamen replied. The name seemed to strike a chill across Temple’s main deck, and not only Tait stepped back in nearly superstitious awe.1