The following game was a playtesting session for an adventure in the PRIVATEERS AND GENTLEMEN supplement, THE KING OVER THE WATER. HEART OF OAK was used for resolving combat, and PROMOTIONS AND PRIZES for the role-playing aspect. Vic Milan played the part of the English skipper, John Gwynedd, and William Chasko assisted as the loyal lieutenant, Malcolm MacNeish. I, as referee, played everyone else. One of the advantages of P&G as a miniatures roleplaying system is that it gives the referee a chance to take command of the opposing ship and actually participate in combat as an active player, rather than simply observe the battles from the oft-boring Olympian perspective. Players intending to play THE KING OVER THE WATER any time in the near future should probably read no further, since the battle report gives away any number of secrets which players should try to discover on their own. By October, 1779, Commander John Gwynedd had commanded the brig FIREDRAKE for three months, having been promoted to the post for conspicuous gallantry in a fireship raid against the rebel bastion of New London, Connecticut. By 1779 the French had come most conspicuously into the war, and their privateers had united in the English Channel with the already considerable American scourge. FIREDRAKE had been assigned to patrol the channel and keep the French in their dens, but Commander Gwynedd had been singularly short of luck. He had seen only three French privateers, all of which had outsailed him and made their escape; and during weeks of hunting the French coast he'd only captured a single small brigantine, and found it in ballast, without any cargo for which he could claim prize money. To add injury to insult, his every return to port had been to witness an increase in the number of British merchantmen posted missing. These were frustrating times, and unlucky. Yet FIREDRAKE was a good vessel for her task. Known to the Continental Navy as PUTNAM'S REVENGE before she was captured at New London and taken into the Royal Navy, she was a brig of 195 tons, carrying a crew of 71 sailors and a dozen marines, and armed with 18 9-pound cannon. She was fast for her class (Sailing Chart 111, Average sailer) and well able to catch most privateers. Her crew had been well trained by her previous commander, and brought up to the pitch of perfection (Crack) by Gwynedd and his able lieutenant, Malcolm MacNeish. They were thirsting for action, and woe betide any French privateer who hoped to exchange broadsides on successful terms. But action, for the moment, had to be deferred. An October gale swept up the channel, and FIREDRAKE ran for Plymouth, arriving just ahead of 50-knot winds and lashings of rain and hail. Appearing a few hours later was the Irish Sea collier TWO BROTHERS, laden and en route to coalhungry London, which anchored at the adjacent buoy. The storm lasted three days. During the night of the last day FIREDRAKE awaited fresh water before leaving port on the morning tide. MacNeish, the ship's first officer, was on deck that night, and heard a disturbance in the fo'c'sle. Investigating, he discovered some of FIREDRAKE's men standing by the anchor hawse, clubbing rats, with the intention of adding them to the stewpot the next day. The fact that crewmen preferred stewed rat to rancid salt pork was no novelty, but to MacNeish the rats' appearance was alarming. It appeared that all the rats - several score, at least - were deserting TWO BROTHERS and swimming to join their brethren aboard FIREDRAKE. To MacNeish this suggested the possibility of plague. He ordered the seamen to throw their next day's repast into the drink whence it came, and hailed TWO BROTHERS to discover whether there was sickness aboard. The answer was in the negative, although TWO BROTHERS' master was pleased to hear his rats were jumping ship. "Perhaps they prefer salt horse and malt beer to pasties and porter", he suggested. "Perhaps they know something you do not", MacNeish retorted. MacNeish kept his men clubbing rats for the rest of the night, and the next day both FIREDRAKE and TWO BROTHERS cleared port. After only 24 hours, it seemed as if Gwynedd's luck had finally turned. On their usual Channel patrol, in a brisk breeze (Wind Level 5 from the WSW, barometer steady), they sighted at dawn of the 29th of October a French privateer snow trying to make off with a prize. And it was not long before Gwynedd and MacNeish, standing on FIREDRAKE's quarterdeck, recognized the prize as the collier TWO BROTHERS. Little time was wasted on speculating whether TWO BROTHERS' rats had somehow managed to foresee and avoid French capture. FIREDRAKE came downwind with every sail set. The privateer snow could have kept its distance (Sailing Chart III, average sailer), but that would have meant abandoning their prize, the slower collier. The privateer, I'EMBUSCADE from Calais, turned to fight. On paper it should have been a close fight. EMBUSCADE was armed with 20 6-pound guns and carried a crew of 120, only 10 of which had been detached as prize crew for the collier. But the crew was not trained to the task of fighting battles with Navy ships (Poor crew), and were used only to the boarding of unarmed merchantmen. And their outmatched captain was simply not the tactical equal of John Gwynedd. The referee had rolled for the characteristics of the French skipper. He was rated as "competent", but his fighting stance was "shy" meaning he would avoid combat if he could. However, his strongest motivation was "desire for wealth", while his glitch was "gambler". The referee decided that the French would fight for a time, opening fire early and trying to cripple FIREDRAKE with shot aimed high. If the brig was disabled, the privateer would be able to make its escape with its prize. If the dismantling attempt failed, L'EMBUSCADE would fill its sails and run away, abandoning its prize and crew. During the approach Gwynedd endured the irregular, poorly-managed fire of his opponent without reply, intending first to close the range. The French miscalculated the speed of the British approach and held on too long, allowing Gwynedd to haul his wind to fire his first broadside at close range. At the first fire Gwynedd rolled a 94, a critical hit! The critical hit rolled was an 87, resulting in EMBUSCADE's mainmast going by the board. The Frenchman couldn't escape now if it tried. FIREDRAKE forged ahead and cross the Frenchman's bows, raking him, then hauled up into the wind and raked again with the fresh, unused starboard guns. EMBUSCADE lost its foremast to another critical hit. FIREDRAKE was able now to literally sail rings around her hapless opponent, and was in the process of doing so when EMBUSCADE was discovered (through an unlucky roll) to have set itself on fire by attempting to fire its broadside through the wreckage draping its side. The fire swiftly raged out of control. Gwynedd, cursing his luck again, clapped on all sail to get away from the inevitable explosion. The Frenchmen accepted their fate manfully enough, clearly relieved not to have been aboard the privateer when it blew up, and indicated that TWO BROTHERS' crew was battened below in the fo'c'sle. When MacNeish went to liberate the collier's crewmen, he discovered a baffling and terrifying mystery: all were dead! The entire crew of the collier, officers and men, were lying dead in the fo'c'sle, as calmly as if they had all lain down to sleep and never got up. Rats! Death! Plague! Whatever it was that had killed the collier's crew, could it spread to the FIREDRAKE? The British brig's surgeon was sobered up with a few cups of coffee and rowed over to a sight that was in itself sobering enough. He pronounced himself baffled. It seemed as if the collier's crew had simply decided to stop living. But if they had died of a contagion, the possibility of infection had to be kept to a minimum. No man who had set foot on TWO BROTHERS' decks would be allowed to return to FIREDRAKE until the mystery was cleared up. MacNeish glumly hoisted a yellow quarantine flag, and asked the surgeon to take his pulse. Nor could the possibility that the French had somehow done away with the victims be overlooked. Although the privateers seemed as surprised as anyone, their story had as many holes in it as an Armada galleon. They claimed to have taken the collier by boarding the night before, battened the crew below, and begun their run for Calais. The dawn sighting of the FIREDRAKE, and the subsequent chase, battle, and explosion, had driven all thought of the original crew out of their heads. MacNeish thought they looked treacherous, so he battened them down in the fo'c'sle after committing the corpses to the deep. The Frenchmen began to scream for help shortly thereafter. Hastening forward with a marine guard, MacNeish released the Frenchmen and found that a number of them had passed out, and the rest had begun to feel ill. Those who had collapsed were dragged up on deck, where they swiftly recovered. This was relayed to the FIREDRAKE by speaking trumpet. What the devil was going on? Rats deserting the ship? A fo'c'sle that killed anyone who slept in it? What was happening aboard the collier? The collier.. . "The collier!" Gwynedd shouted. "It carries coal!" He had heard about coal miners who had to carry a pet bird below ground with them to aid in the detection of bad air. TWO BROTHERS had taken on a load of impure coal, and was lousy with coal gas! The dead men had simply been asphyxiated. The rats had detected the stuff and run for it. All this was shortly related to MacNeish. All he had to do was keep everyone on deck in the fresh air, and make for Portsmouth. FIREDRAKE would resume its patrols against the French and be in port in a few days. After wishing his captain good hunting, MacNeish began to plot his course to harbor. Things went well enough for the first twelve hours, but then, a few hours after midnight, the main hatch suddenly blew off with a thunderous explosion, burning several men severely and killing Josiah Suckbribe, midshipman, son of the FIREDRAKE's purser Leo Suckbribe. A tower of flame soon soared up the mainmast, unquenchable and hungry. It hadn't been coal gas after all. TWO BROTHERS' cargo had actually been on fire for days, smouldering quietly in the hold, smoking out the rats and eventually killing the crew with carbon dioxide poisoning. Now the fire had gained enough headway to blast itself into the open, the there was no stopping it. MacNeish, the surgeon, FIREDRAKE's men, and the French prisoners tumbled into the boats and cast off. It was a long row to Portsmouth, and for hours their oars dipped and rose by the light of the burning TWO BROTHERS, until a greater light rose in the east. The battered boatmen reached port two days later, tired but determined, and FIREDRAKE arrived after a week after another fruitless patrol. Gwynedd and MacNeish conferred angrily, annoyed at the incredible lack of result. A French privateer beaten, but blown up instead of captured. A British prize recaptured, but set afire through some carelessness of its crew and lost. Determined to find an enemy worthy of their mettle, Gwynedd and MacNeish took FIREDRAKE out of harbor the next day, intending to change their luck. Two days upchannel they discovered something they hadn't quite bargained on... but that, as we say, is another story. The adventure of the Calamitous Collier was over. ED NOTE: PROMOTIONS AND PRIZES and HEART OF OAK are available from Fantasy Games Unlimited - see their advt. elsewhere in this issue. Back to Table of Contents -- Courier Vol. VI No. 2 Back to Courier List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 1985 by The Courier Publishing Company. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com