The Powder Monkey

(20 minute read)

Exmouth, 1795

The rare south-easterly wind blew sharp off the Channel, rattling the windows of the crooked houses huddled along Exmouth’s sprawling seafront. The proper houses of the well to do were lined up neatly on the Beacon ridge over looking everyone else, who made do sleeping in shacks made from whatever they could cobble together and were always at the mercy of incoming storms. The sea had been cruel that year. Nets came back empty more often than not, and the men grumbled that even the fish had fled to better shores.

The quayside

Hopper didn’t grumble. He laughed. Loud, confident, and forever with a grin on his weather-browned face, Hopper, nineteen, barely a man, strolled the quay as though he owned it not caring or understanding the consequences of a poor harvest of fish. A ragged gang of teenagers followed him everywhere— Will Kemp with his missing tooth, young Sprat who could sing like a lark, and Big Jack who’s vocabulary never included words of more than four letters. Together they made a noisy business of life, mending torn nets for pennies and drinking cheap ale. They’d boast of the boats they would own one day when luck turned their way. But the truth was, their prospects were dim, there was no employment, just the odd jobs that paid for their beer.

The corner shop

Nancy Ann watched Hopper from the steps of the baker’s shop where she worked for scraps. He was everything she wasn’t carefree, where she worried - and bold, where she hesitated. He was the only colour in a life gone grey with hunger and the smell of salt.

Beside her, her best friend, Mary Tucker sniffed. “Mark my words, Nance, he’ll not amount to a farthing. Loud as a brass bell and twice as empty. I can see that look in your eyes. Best forget him.”

Nancy Ann replied “I know you’re right but…” she finished the sentence in hear head, ‘…he was the only bright spark in what had been a long over-cast winter’.

“You’d fair better up the Beacon hill, find yourself a Captain, or even an Admiral” advised Mary. But what chances had Nancy Ann, she had come to accept the life ahead of her, scratching a living in this remote corner of the country. At least she could enjoy her moments of fantasy watching the carefree Hopper.

Just then, Hopper swaggered past and tipped his cap, eyes glinting with mischief, as though he carried the sun in his pocket and would share it with her if she was brave enough to smile back.

The Pilot Inn

That night, the alehouse was full of townsfolk, smoke and the stench of old ale. Everybody joined in with the fishermen’s shanties. Hopper, Will, Sprat and Jack  crowded around a small table of jugs, their conversations loud and jovial, complaining about the weather and dreaming of the lives they might yet lead.

Sprat announced “I’m going to crew the Pilot’s Gig next week, they said I could have a go rowing in bow.”

“Yer righ’” said Big Jack. No one knowing what he meant by that.

“Rowing…” spirted Hopper not impressed, “I’m going to sail that Schooner that’s in the dock.”

“No yer not” said Big Jack.

“Dream on” said Sprat.

“Maybe you’re right, but at least I got dreams. I’m gonna buy my own boat someday, you’ll see” said Hopper defensively.

“Not mending nets you’re not” said Big Jack

The door opened

That was when a weathered stranger with a long worn oil skin coat and eyes that had seen too much ocean, quietly but confidently marched in and went straight to the bar. He whispered something to the bar maid, she poured him a shot of rum. Then in a loud, deep but horse voice he addressed the room. “Listen here you limp-livered, pathetic parasites, your lives are like a turd, floating in the scum in the corner of the dock. I am here to offer you a life-belt, a way out of this misery, a future. If any of you wasters here can read, read this” with that he slammed a pamphlet on the bar, threw back his rum and swiftly disappeared back into the dark grey night leaving nothing but a cloud of drizzle.

The innocent little pamphlet lay on the ale-stained wood as the whole tavern stared at it. Old Ted, was at his usual seat, at the corner of the bar and the closest, picked up the paper. “I might as well read this as I’m probably the only one here with the ability to do so.
It’s from the Royal Navy,” he said, after a few moments taking it in. “Food, pay, and a chance to sail under Nelson himself.  They need men. Ship’s sailing from Plymouth —HMS Orion.”

The room hushed. Hopper snatched the pamphlet, scanning the words by candlelight as if he could actually read. The undertone of murmured conversation started filling the pub again.

‘Money’ thought Hopper. ‘A boat of my own, maybe this is my destiny, fortune has come my way.’

“I’ll go,” he said loudly, chest swelling. “Why not? I’m wasted here. This way I can buy my own boat.”

The friends cheered, slapping him on the back, notably though none said they would join him.

Across the room, in a quiet dark corner, Nancy Ann’s sat silent and stunned, her heart shivered.

Two days later

Having travelled through the night, Hopper stood on the quay as the sun rose over Plymouth with a small bundle of clothes under his arm, trying to look braver than he felt. Nancy Ann had said she would accompany him on the cart from Exmouth, for her, just to be able to have some time sitting next to her beau, squeezing out every last minute. A memory she could cherish.

The HMS Orion loomed large at the quayside, a monolith of blackened English oak, its masts cutting the sky like giants’ spears. Far bigger than any ship that had ever visited Exmouth.

Hopper turned to Nancy Ann. He didn’t say anything but his eyes spoke volumes. His usual cockiness was stripped away, he was just a young man who’d come face to face with his future. She said what he wanted to hear. “You can’t go,” she blurted.

He thought. ‘She was right. He could turn back now, he could easily take Nancys hand and return to Exmouth, tell his friends he had missed the ship.

..and then what, fix more nets!’

“I’ve got to do it” he was telling himself as much as her.

“Not like this.” Said Nancy Ann “You’ll die out there.”

He lifted his head, he looked at the Orion. “I can’t stay, Nance. There’s nothing here for me.”

Nancy Ann’s lip trembled. They stood there in silence looking at each other.

Then Nancy Ann said with more confidence and spirit than she had ever summoned up before, “Then I’m coming with you.”

He laughed.

Then he realised she was serious.

At the top of the gangplank, the Orion’s captain stood tall among his Lieutenants in a perfect new uniform, with sharper eyes than the gulls circling overhead. Captain Saumarez, a man with a spine as straight as a mast and a reputation to match and a temper as bad as any storm.

“Women don’t sail on my ship,” Captain Saumarez said calmly but without question.

Nancy Ann lifted her chin. “I can sew. Mend sails. Anything.”

The Captain studied her a moment, then said slowly, “The only way a woman is allowed on a Royal Navy ship is as a sailor’s wife. That’s the rule.”

The deck fell silent.

Hopper looked at Nancy Ann, at the determination blazing in her eyes. Maybe he’d only meant to escape Exmouth. Maybe he hadn’t thought much about the girl who always watched him with her heart on her sleeve.

“Get the chaplain,” Hopper said. “We’ll do it now.”

And there, on the salt-streaked deck with sailors for witnesses and gulls singing in chorus above the rigging, Nancy Ann became Nancy Ann Hopper in a ceremony barely longer than a prayer.

That evening as the tide rose and the wind changed direction the HMS Orion unfurled its canvas, raised its anchor, and set sail with two newly weds, towards a future neither could yet see.

Life at Sea

Life aboard HMS Orion was nothing like the easy swagger of the quay or the alehouse at Exmouth.

From the moment Hopper and Nancy Ann stepped aboard, Captain Saumarez whispered his commands and the Bosun echoed them with a voice that rang over the deck like the crack of a whip. Every man—and now woman—learned fast that aboard Orion, there was no room for idlers or dreamers. Lines had to be coiled just so, decks scrubbed until they shone like polished oak tables, and sails trimmed the moment an order was given.

Hopper, so loud and confident ashore, found himself tongue-tied before the other seasoned sailors, hauling on ropes until his hands blistered raw. His new world was ruled by the Bosun’s whistle, by the bell marking the long watches of the day and night, by the constant demands of Captain Saumarez wanting the Orion to be worthy addition to Nelson’s most feared fleet.

Nancy Ann fared no easier. She slept in a canvas hammock slung between beams, rocked by the creaking timbers above and below. The air below decks was thick with tar, sweat, and the sour smell of unwashed men. Rats scuttled in the shadows.

Their first storm came roaring out of the Atlantic one night, Nancy Ann clung to a beam as the ship heeled and shuddered like a living creature in pain.

Hopper, responded to the call, ‘All hands on deck’ drenched to the bone within the minute, the task to get the sails furled, up the rigging as the ship swayed in the swell and inching outwards on the spur, over the waves, the rocking exaggerated at this height. Standing on nothing but a single rope, arms hanging over the front edge, hauling up the sail as it fought against him. Concentrating on the job in hand he tried to ignore his own fear. The sea was black as hell itself, waves rose like hills around them, sails cracked and split in the wind, and men cursed as they fought to keep the Orion on course.

When the exhausted dawn came, pale and weak over a grey and still groaning sea, the ship stood tall all be it washed by the waves. Nancy Ann had been stowing equipment all night a below decks. She had aged a year in a single night.

Weeks turned into months.

Fourteen ships of the line swept eastward in formation across the Mediterranean, searching for the French fleet, rumoured to be carrying Napoleon’s army. Everyone on board obediently followed orders, sails furled and unfurled, as the great ships either side of them scanned the horizon, hunting an enemy always just out of reach.

It wasn’t until August when signal flags snapped in the wind: The French were found.

Aboard HMS Orion, the air crackled with excitement. The gun decks were cleared. The huge canons were rolled into position. Primed and loaded. More shot piled alongside. The gun doors opened. This routine had been practised, but this time it wasn’t for practise.

Captain Saumarez summoned Nancy Ann. “You’ll stay in the officers’ quarters,” he ordered. “Safe behind the bulkhead.”

Nancy Ann squared her shoulders. “No, sir. If the ship’s ready for battle, then so am I. I’ll help the powder monkeys. I’ll keep the guns supplied.” With that she made her way to the stairs to climb down past all the decks to the belly of the ship, the lowest darkest quarters, where the gunpowder was safely stored. It was strangely quiet in the hull, except for the deep grumbling of the oak timbers and it was dark, as dark as hell itself, lanterns were not allowed.

Napoleon awaits

Anchored just off Aboukir, on the Egyptian coast, lay Napoleon’s fleet, its tall dark masts silhouetted against the deep orange desert sky. They were moored in a line close to the shore, guns facing the open sea. Nelson’s ships also in a line, headed slowly but steadily in the light breeze, towards them. At the last minute, unexpectedly the lead ship cut in to dangerous wares between the shore and the French line. The French were not expecting the British to risk the shallows, they hurried to reposition their guns.

The gun deck before battle was a world apart. The hammocks, the personal belongings, the tables and benches and items of daily life we all stowed away out of site. All that remained were rows of huge 24-pounders pointing out through the gunports, black muzzles waiting in silent menace. Nancy Ann and the barefoot boys were busy scurrying about like rats, their job, to keep the waiting crews supplied with canvas cartridges of gunpowder.

The men stripped to their waists, knotted kerchiefs over their ears to muffle the thunder soon to come. Buckets of water stood ready to swab the guns after every shot, to keep stray sparks from turning the deck into a firestorm. The anticipation was palpable and grew thick with sweat, fear, and the gentle smell of the burning fuses the gun masters held as they waited for their orders.

Above them, the sails slackened in the weak wind. The Orion swung into line with the other ships of Admiral Nelson’s fleet, bearing down on the French under a sky streaked crimson with the last light of day.

As each ship, one by one passed their opponent they let loose their shot, the excitement of the release of hot metal was instantly met by the horror of the penetrating French shot ripping holes through wood and flesh.

The world instantly turned to smoke and fire. Chaos and the deafening noise as cannons roared shaking the very spine of the ship. Men shouted orders above the thunder as shot smashed through the French hulls. The Orion was in the middle of it . Splinters the size of daggers flew through the air, felling men with agonising screams.

Nancy Ann and the other powder monkeys kept delivering their vital parcels, the guns reloaded and wrenching out cannon balls, hour after hour, as the Orion hammered the French line. Hopper hauled on tackles, swabbed barrels, heaved shot into place, his muscles burning with each recoil of his gun.

The air grew thick and choking. Every flash from the gunports lit the deck like lightning in a storm, showing faces blackened with powder, teeth bared in shouts no one could hear.

At last the French guns fell silent, one by one. Fires raged on their decks. Their flagship, L’Orient, exploded in a roar that split the night and shook the sea itself. The French fleet was shattered.

The Battle of the Nile was won.

Nancy Ann was on her own in the dark hull when the guns went quiet. She had been running on nothing but adrenaline for hours, her hands and feet were sore from the gunpowder, her throat dry. She put down the sacks and climbed up the many stairs to find Hopper. They had survived, battered and bruised they lay in each others arms, looking out the gunport at the devastation all around.

Homeward Bound

Nearly two years passed before Nancy Ann and Hopper saw England again. They fought in three battles, sailed through storms that nearly swallowed them whole, and crossed seas so wide that England seemed little more than a dream.

But at last, HMS Orion dropped anchor at Plymouth. Hopper and Nancy Ann came ashore. Nothing would be the same again. Their heads full of stories and their pockets full of his majesty’s coinage —more money than either had ever seen before.

They rode on a horse and cart back toward Exmouth, the fields looked so green after so many years of endless blue grey water.

Hopper grinned as he watched the town draw near. “We can get a nice little place to live in Exmouth with your money, Nance.”

She turned to him sharply. “Eh? My money? What about your money?”

Hopper laughed, loud as ever. “I’m buying a boat. For you and me to sail to sea whenever we wish. And I’m going to call it The Powder Monkey.”

Nancy Ann looked at him for a long moment, then smiled. The road ahead bent toward Exmouth, toward home, toward a life neither of them could have imagined when it all began.

END

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