The Battle of All the Ages Read Online Free PDF Page A

with the comforts of a country parish. He served with me in two of my subsequent commands , proving equally adept at exorcising evil spirits and wielding a cutlass against the enemies of Old England. I was somewhat surprised that the Earl and the Dowager Countess had consented to yet another leave of absence to enable Francis to serve with me at sea, but Charles explained all before I left London to join my command.
    ‘I am content,’ said the Earl of Ravensden, ‘and more importantly , so is our mother. She has been in transports of delight since that troublesome tinker Bunyan was thrown back into Bedford gaol,and commends Francis for his part in the arrest. The dissenters of the Hundred are much discouraged, and skulk behind their hedgerows. So I think that in this present moment, mother would grant the Reverend Gale anything he asked, even her hand in marriage.’
    I laughed, for Francis’s flattery of the venerable Dowager Countess of Ravensden was entirely shameless. In turn, she, for whom the word virago might have been coined, was known to blush and simper in his presence like the most innocent of virgins.
    ‘Stir up thy strength, oh Lord, and come and help us; for thou givest not away the battle to the strong, but canst save by many or by few. Oh let not our sins now cry against us for vengeance –’
    ‘The bloody flag!’
    The cry came from the lookout at the maintop. I ran to the stern rail, snatched my telescope from Kellett, and focused on the vast, unmistakeable shape of the flagship
Royal Charles
, some ten or twelve places behind us in the line, spray cascading over her huge bows as she breasted the waves. There, at her foretop, flew an enormous plain red flag.
    The bloody flag.
    The signal for every ship to fall upon the enemy and fight to the death.

Chapter Two
THE FIRST DAY: 1 JUNE 1666:
12.30 PM to 6 PM
    Monck yet prevents him ere the navies meet
    And charges in, himself alone a fleet,
    And with so quick and frequent motion wound
    His murd’ring sides about, the ship seem’d round,
    And the exchanges of his circles tire
    Like whirling hoops show’d of triumphal fire.
    Single he does at their whole navy aim,
    And shoots them through a porcupine of flame.
    Andrew Marvell,
Third Advice to a Painter
(1666)
    ‘Ready, Mister Burdett!’ I raised my sword. ‘On my command – wait – wait –’ I brought the sword down. ‘
As each gun bears, give fire!
’
    The larboard broadside of the
Royal Sceptre
fired in anger for the first time. The deck shuddered as the culverins down on the upper deck fired and recoiled. Likewise, the short demi-culverin cuts on the quarterdeck belched flame and recoiled across the deck until held by the tackle. I felt the familiar kick in the chest and stomach, heard the roar that sometimes deafened those unaccustomed to it. The crewsimmediately set to, scouring and cooling the gun barrels before ramming home the ladles bearing the powder charges, then the wadding, then the great round balls themselves. Although the wind blew most of the smoke away, enough of it swirled back over the deck to fill my nostrils with the now-familiar acrid stench. I stole a glance at the Earl of Rochester, for I knew this was his first experience of war. His open mouth and streaming eyes made it plain that his battle virginity had been well and truly deflowered. As if to echo the emotions of its master, his monkey let out an unearthly shriek and disappeared below decks.
    I squinted through the smoke, trying to make out the extent of the damage, if any, to our opposite number, a fifty-gunner of the Amsterdam admiralty. Burdett came onto the quarterdeck to report, but before he could speak, the flames of our opponent’s broadside spat defiance from her gunports. I heard the whoosh and whistle of chain-and bar-shot, but it was well above me. I looked up and saw three or four holes in the main course, one or two in the fore.
    Burdett saluted. ‘Reckon we put half a dozen balls into her hull, Sir