AAR. August Solo Scenario: The Signal Station. HEIC Nottingham.
After a prolonged cruise in the Southern Indian Ocean without getting a whiff of enemy vessels the HEIC Frigate Nottingham was in dire need of replenishment. Both food and water were running low. Captain David McBride was forced to seek replenishment on one of the nearby Maldive Islands.
Within minutes of the anchor hitting the water the inevitable armada of small craft put out from shore to barter all manner of items with the crew.
One of the Islanders with a little more than the usual pigeon English let it be known that a French Frigate was watering in a bay a little further down the coast. Furthermore, that they had landed men to man the lookout station near to the old abandoned Portuguese fort.
McBride immediately gathered his Officers and the Commander of his Bombay Marine, to discuss a plan for taking the enemy Frigate.
Thus it was that at dead of night Nottingham put into the next bay to the French and dispatched a boat with the Bombay Marines to secure the lookout station without alerting the Frigate's Captain.
He reasoned that if a small party of marines could not take the station quietly without a shot, a larger group would inevitably have to open fire and thus alert the enemy crew that all was not well on the hillside.
Having landed the Marines approached the old ruined fort with caution, but just as the native had said it was abandoned.
Creeping up on the lookout from the landward side, two of the Sepoys vanished into the gloom, only to re appear to inform the Havildar that the sentries had been silenced.
Within minutes the Marines were into the works and subduing the small garrison of sleeping men.
Some put up a fight and several injuries were sustained on either side, but the bayonet soon overcame the knives that were all the French could reach for from their bunks.
As dawn broke, HEIC Nottingham rounded the headland.
The French were taken totally by surprise, and so was Captain McBride.
There in the bay lay two ships. The Frigate and alongside it, a Sloop loading powder and stores.
The French must have had a good lookout, or maybe the lack of any movement from the Signal station may have alerted them to something odd going on, for no sooner was Nottingham visible than the ships in the bay became a veritable hive of activity.
McBride could see the Courses being set even as the Boatswain's men took axes to the anchor cables,
Within minutes both vessels were gaining way and heading out of the bay.
Not swiftly enough, however, for McBride had been planning for this moment for hours. Two ships or one made no difference to his strategy.
Well aware that any Captain caught embayed would cut and run, instead of altering course to head off the enemy, he held on into the bay under full sail with the wind fine on his port quarter.
He figured that where a ship could swing at anchor, he could sail.
Waiting until the very last moment to reduce sail, David slipped behind the French Frigate Le Succes which he was close enough to read on its stern, before it was obliterated by his double shotted rake from almost point blank range.
The French marines in the tops bravely returned fire, but Succes prayed off into the wind as two of her masts went by the board, and loose powder scattered by the upended guns started several fires on her deck.
It was all the remaining crew could do to fight the fires and attempt to pump the water caused by leaks out of her bilges. Her Captain stood alone on the remains of his quarter deck totally uninjured whilst Officers and men went down all around him. In a matter of seconds his command was destroyed.
Meanwhile, Nottingham came about, to avoid the towering cliffs, just as the wind changed a couple of points, helping the fleeing Sloop to pick up speed and deliver its own broadside, for what it was, right into the Nottingham's Bow.
Before the Nottingham could rake her again, and with fire still raging on the French Frigate her captain struck.
As both ships cleared the headland the wind continued to veer.
As the Nottingham continued its turn in order to take command of the Frigate, the daring Sloop Commander, with the veering wind just giving him more leeway than Nottingham, came up into the wind and gave Nottingham a cheeky parting shot from his stern battery.
Taken aback, he now presented David with the opportunity to answer with his unused Port broadside, but only the forrard guns could be brought to bear, as the two ships turned away from each other.
The French were lucky to escape much more lightly than the Frigate, and giving the larger vessel the best of the encounter made off under full sail.
By the time Nottingham had hove to, and lowered boats to take position of the Frigate, recover her Marines, and get under way once more,
the French sloop Le Fortune had shown her a clean pair of heels, and was almost over the horizon.
With a badly mauled prize to attend and damage to his own ship, David reluctantly decided not to give chase.
There was always another day and another ship.
Bligh.
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