by Seth Hunter
‘They have let me out,’ Nathan assured him, in case Tully thought he had climbed over the wall. ‘And withdrawn all charges against me. No case to answer. All my eye and Betty Martin.’
‘Oh, I am so glad to hear it, sir. So glad. None of us believed a word of it, of course. No one. Not that we knew much about it.’ He blushed through his dark tan for they both knew you could not lock up a Post Captain for three months without it being a talking-point throughout the fleet, and doubtless some of the speculations concerning his arrest had touched upon the fantastical.
Nathan regarded him keenly. Tully looked healthy enough but there was perhaps something lacking in his usual vivacity. They had known each other since their time on the Nereus together, just before the war, chasing smugglers on the south coast of England. Before that, Tully had been a smuggler himself, in his native Channel Isles. He had been pressed into the Navy as an alternative to prison, but had done well enough out of it, rising from assistant sailing master to lieutenant and making at least as much in prize money as he would from cheating the Revenue Service. But you could usually see the smuggler in him, if you looked carefully enough, as if his time in the King’s Navy was something of a joke, on both him and the King. He did not look at all amused now, though. Despite his obvious delight at seeing Nathan, he seemed abnormally anxious. Harassed even. More so than when they had been in battle together. Perhaps he had slept badly, or been hitting the bottle the night before. He had clearly been thrown by Nathan’s unexpected arrival.
‘I am sorry I was not here to greet you, sir,’ he said. ‘I am afraid we are all at sixes and sevens.’ He shot a glance at Imlay, as if it was a cruel joke not to warn him, which it was.
‘And I am sorry to spring myself upon you.’ Nathan jerked his head at Imlay disrespectfully. ‘He thought it would be a surprise for us both.’
‘I heard the name Unicorn,’ Tully said, staring briefly out to sea, as if in hope to see their old ship sitting upon the mist off the mole with her plain white figurehead and her thirty-two guns.
‘Regrettably she is still in the hands of the French,’ Nathan said, ‘but I did not know how else to announce myself.’
He hesitated. This was awkward. He was not sure how much he was free to disclose. Probably not much at all. He cursed Imlay privately for being such a fool as not to warn him that Tully was aboard and tell him what he might be permitted to say. It was typical of Imlay, he thought, that within hours of their reunion he was setting Nathan against his friends.
‘Perhaps we may talk in private,’ Imlay addressed him now. ‘And a coffee would be most welcome,’ he instructed Tully, as if he was the landlady of an inn and not the Commander of a sloop-of-war. ‘If it is not beyond our primitive resources.’
‘I think we can manage that,’ replied Tully, catching Nathan’s eye. ‘If you see your steward before I do, perhaps you might mention it to him.’
‘And when your duties allow, perhaps you would care to join us,’ Nathan put in firmly, for he was damned if either of them were to be treated as if they were under Imlay’s private command.
Imlay frowned in irritation, which far from troubling Nathan afforded him some slight if childish satisfaction. Tully bowed his acknowledgement. ‘I will join you shortly,’ he agreed.
Nathan followed Imlay into the Captain’s quarters which were almost as commodious as those on the Unicorn, with one cabin for dining, one for sleeping and a large day cabin running the breadth of the stern, though the space was now shared with two pair of carronades. He remembered sitting here with Spiridion Foresti just after the ship was taken, and washing the blood off his face – someone else’s blood on that occasion – and reading the French Captain’s orders while he drank the dead man’s wine. It was here that he had decided on his ill-fated trip to Venice.
It had been Tully’s cabin since, and now, apparently, it was Imlay’s. Not that there was much sign of his occupancy. There were charts spread on the table and an oilskin hanging upon a hook, but nothing that might in any way have been construed as domestic or personal. Which did not, of course, surprise Nathan in the least, Imlay being no more inclined to nest-making than the cuckoo.
He could see a large portion of the anchorage through the stern windows, with several gunboats moored alongside a sheer hulk and a large two-decker in the distance, though too far for him to recognise. If he stooped low enough he supposed he would be able to see his former residence at the peak of the Rock.
The steward Tully had referred to appeared upon the instant – an odd-looking cove dressed more like a footman than a mariner in breeches and silk stockings and an old-fashioned periwig. An Englishman apparently, with a North Country accent.
‘Some coffee, if you please, Qualtrough,’ Imlay instructed him, ‘and is it too early to tempt you with breakfast?’ he enquired of Nathan considerately.
It was never too early, or late, to tempt Nathan with breakfast but he reluctantly declined, feeling it would put him at a disadvantage. There was much he still required to know and he needed to keep his wits about him, and not feel obliged.
‘So who was the officer who greeted us as we came aboard?’ he began, as he removed his hat and settled himself, uninvited, at one end of the table.
‘That is Belli,’ replied Imlay, sitting at the opposite end and beaming agreeably.
‘Belly?’ Nathan repeated, inaccurately, wondering if this was a private nickname relating to his girth.
‘Kapitan-leytnant Grigory Vasilyevich Belli,’ stated Imlay impressively, adding unnecessarily: ‘He is a Russian.’
‘I see,’ reflected Nathan, though it was a far-from-accurate account of his understanding in this instance. ‘Kapitan-leytnant …’ he repeated.
‘It is the rank of an officer in the Imperial Russian Navy,’ Imlay informed him, as if it were no more a surprise to find one in the vicinity of Gibraltar than a swallow, say, on its way to Africa. ‘I do not believe there is an equivalent in your own service. Unless it be that of Commander, perhaps.’
‘Thank you,’ said Nathan. ‘So I had assumed.’
He was more familiar with the ranks in the Imperial Russian Navy than Imlay might have supposed, having had them explained to him, with other peculiarities of that institution, by his former first lieutenant aboard the Unicorn, Mr Duncan, who had served with the Russian fleet in the Black Sea during the years of peace.
‘What is more puzzling to me,’ Nathan said, ‘is what he is doing aboard an American ship-of-war – unless you have inadvertently misguided me, and she is now in the Russian service.’
‘Grigory Vasilyevich is in my service,’ Imlay responded, not in the least discomforted by this sally. ‘We met in Stockholm when he was in some pecuniary embarrassment and I was able to provide him with some assistance.’
Nathan restrained himself from commenting that this was the reverse of the usual arrangement. ‘You were in Stockholm?’ he asked instead.
‘I was,’ confirmed Imlay, but offered no further information on the subject.
‘But Lieutenant Belli is, in fact, Russian?’
‘He is. He was obliged to seek refuge in Sweden after a disagreement with Admiral Ushakov in which gross insults were exchanged.’
‘I see,’ Nathan said again. Admiral Ushakov, he recalled, had been the Commander of the Russian Black Sea fleet in the recent war with the Turks. ‘And his position on the Jean-Bart?’
‘He is serving in the capacity of a lieutenant, until Mr Tully hands the ship over, and then he will serve under her new Commander – if they both find this agreeable.’
‘He speaks English?’
‘Not a great deal, but there are a number of Russians among the crew.’ Nathan raised an enquiring brow at this, whereupon Imlay added: ‘About a dozen. Personal followers of Grigory Vasilyevich who sailed with him from Saint Petersburg.’
‘Sailed with him? So he was in possession of a ship at the time of his … decampment?’
‘A bomb ketch of the Imperial Rus
sian Navy. It was returned by the Swedes to avoid embarrassment.’
‘Very sensibly. Lieutenant-Captain Belli sounds as if he might be something of an embarrassment himself.’
‘Oh, not at all. He is a very fine fellow. Very jolly, and so are his followers.’
‘And the rest of the crew?’
‘There are a few Portuguese we were able to pick up in Lisbon, some Genoese who are, I believe, part of her original crew but are now in my service – and some Americans I brought with me from England.’
‘American seamen?’
‘Prime seamen. Formerly of the brig John Harvard of Boston which was taken by an English cruiser on suspicion of running contraband into France.’
Nathan made no comment on this acquisition other than to remark that at least some of the crew might speak a version of the King’s English.
‘I believe they do have that facility,’ Imlay confirmed, ‘having once been subject to King George, though I can think of little else in the contract that was to their advantage.’
‘Apart from defending them against the French and the Indians for the best part of two hundred years,’ Nathan reminded him tartly, ‘whilst expanding their commerce, increasing their prosperity, and employing their taxes for the common good.’ Imlay supplying no counter to this argument more articulate than a derisive snort, Nathan added: ‘So what is the entire ship’s complement?’
‘I believe near sixty.’ He noted Nathan’s expression. ‘Considerably fewer than you have been used to, I would suppose, though it appears perfectly adequate to sail a vessel of this size.’
‘But not to fight her.’
‘You may rest easy on that score. I have no expectation of having to fight. However, I have plans to increase their number.’
‘From where?’ Nathan wanted to know.
‘From here in Gibraltar.’ Then, after a small pause: ‘And also from Algiers, which is our next port of call.’
Why Algiers? Nathan wondered. But as he was unlikely to get a straight answer, he asked the question that had been uppermost on his mind since he stepped aboard. ‘And who is paying for all of this? The American Government?’
Another small hesitation. ‘Not directly.’ Then: ‘Very well, I will tell you, provided it is kept between ourselves. Most of the funds have been supplied by your friend Mr Devereux, the American Consul in Venice, who is naturally very concerned for his daughter’s safety. And he has the backing of a number of influential friends in England and America.’
Before Nathan could push Imlay further on this, the steward entered with their coffee, Tully at his heels.
‘You are sure you do not wish to be private?’ Tully said.
‘Not at all,’ Nathan assured him blithely and in spite of Imlay’s frown. ‘It is only by your leave that we have made free of your cabin, for she is still a King’s ship and you her Commander, I am told – until you choose to hand her over.’
The sun, suddenly rising from beyond the Rock, dispelled the final shreds of mist and flooded the cabin with a golden morning light – Nathan’s first morning for several months outside a prison cell. As he took his first sip of the steaming hot coffee and stretched his long legs under the Captain’s table, he felt what could almost have been a surge of happiness. He kicked it firmly back in its hole. The future, he reminded himself, was still uncertain. But when was it not?
‘So how long were you in Lisbon?’ Nathan enquired as Tully took off his hat and joined them at the table.
‘The best part of six months.’
A long time for a ship that had only been at sea four years. ‘But she is a new ship, practically. Built in ninety-three, was she not?’
‘That is right – in the yard at Castellammare in the Bay of Naples, which has a fine reputation.’
‘Finer in many ways than Chatham, I am told.’
Tully shrugged. ‘But as much infected with corruption, I imagine. There was a quantity of green wood in the futtocks and the spirketting, which had caused them to warp consider ably in parts.’
‘Never!’ Nathan exclaimed, for he was always shocked by the perfidy of shipbuilders, whether English or Italian. This latest example of their deceit engrossed the two men for some time, for they could talk of spirketting and futtocks, carlines and cant timbers with as much animation and at as great a length as other men talked of the fashion for high collars and cravats.
‘And you have had her fitted out with smashers?’ There was just enough of an inflexion in Nathan’s tone to imply a criticism, and they both turned their heads to view the most neighbourly of these objects, which stood just a few feet from the end of the table.
‘Indeed. It is the practice, I am told, with all the latest sloops. The theory is that it gives them the punch of a frigate at much less expense.’
‘If they are permitted to advance close enough to employ them.’
It was a myth, of course, that carronades could be relied upon only at close quarters, since at maximum elevation they could fire almost as far as a long gun – but with nothing like the accuracy, in Nathan’s opinion. The two officers discussed this question for some minutes until called to order by a pronounced cough from Imlay, who had endured their debate with a somewhat strained expression.
‘May I take it from this impassioned interest in smashers, spirketts and the like that you have decided to accept my offer?’ he enquired of Nathan.
Tully shot Nathan a look of sufficient concern to require an assurance from Nathan that he had not been dismissed the service, but merely permitted to take a few months leave of absence. ‘During which I may, if I wish,’ he concluded, ‘take service with Imlay here as the Commander of a privateer.’
‘Well, if you need another officer,’ said Tully, ‘I have always wanted to try my hand at privateering.’
‘Is that possible?’ Nathan looked to Imlay.
‘I am sure it can be arranged, if it would help you come to a decision.’
‘Do you know what Mr Imlay has in mind?’ Nathan asked Tully.
‘He knows as much as he needs to know,’ Imlay replied swiftly.
Nathan thought it over. The main argument in favour of the venture, so far as he was concerned, was that he might find further evidence of a French attack upon Egypt. But if he did not, if it did turn out to be a ruse de guerre, it would only confirm their lordships in their low opinion of him. There were, besides, other considerations.
‘I am very reluctant to commit myself without written orders,’ he explained to Tully. ‘I have just suffered several months in prison on suspicion of consorting with the enemy. If Nelson had not spoken up for me, I would still be there.’
Imlay stood up and crossed to a desk at the far end of the room and returned with a small package and a separate letter, both of which he tossed in Nathan’s direction.
‘I was instructed to give you these only if you agreed to the commission,’ he said, ‘but if it helps you make up your mind …’
Nathan picked up the letter. The seal was unfamiliar to him. He broke it open and removed a single sheet of paper. It was from Admiral St Vincent, written aboard the Ville de Paris off Cadiz and headed Most Secret and Confidential, To Captain Nathan Peake Esq, Governor’s House, Gibraltar.
That was tactful, Nathan conceded. Addressing it to the Moorish Prison might have caused the Admiral some disquiet.
Sir,
Whereas you presently find yourself without a command, the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty have conveyed to me their wish that you be granted a leave of absence for an indefinite period, during which time their lordships have been pleased to confirm that you are at liberty to accept any post that is offered you, commensurate with your rank and abilities, by any person or persons whose interests are not opposed to those of His Majesty’s Government.
Should any such post arise and the circumstances being favourable, you are to deliver the despatches that accompany this missive to those representatives of His Majesty as you may encounter on your travels
and deliver such replies as shall be entrusted to you.
You are further requested and required as an officer of His Majesty’s Navy to diligently seek out any intelligence of the enemy in whatever region you are required to visit and to undertake such surveys and observations as may be useful to those forces at His Majesty’s command,
Yours &c
St Vincent
If this was meant to relieve Nathan’s apprehension, it failed on several counts. He was particularly concerned that it was not a direct instruction from the Admiralty or from the Admiral himself. If any problems arose, it left both parties with ample scope for misunderstanding or outright denial. Of course, the letter itself provided some reassurance, but if he lost it, as he had the order sending him to Venice, he very much doubted if a copy would be made available. And then there were the ambiguities.
… any person or persons whose interests are not opposed to those of His Majesty’s Government … the circumstances being favourable … those representatives of His Majesty as you may encounter …
Clearly, St Vincent was being deliberately evasive. Was this because he feared the letter might fall into the wrong hands – or from some more sinister motive?
He looked up to see Imlay watching him carefully. He was holding another letter in both hands, like an offering, but there was something in his manner that put Nathan instantly on his guard.
‘This also is for you,’ said Imlay. ‘I was asked to deliver it personally. But you may wish to read it in private.’
Almost with reluctance he handed it over and then made a small gesture to Tully who looked startled but picked up his hat and, with a concerned glance at Nathan, followed Imlay from the cabin.
Nathan considered the envelope with foreboding, for Imlay’s manner indicated the probability of bad news, news of which Imlay himself was aware. He recognised the hand immediately, for though he had received only one letter from her in the past year, he had read it so often it was imprinted on his memory. He broke the seal. It was from Sara. Two pages in her large, clear, confident scrawl. Dated almost two months ago, with a London address. Not his mother’s. She wrote:
