She had to admit to feeling somewhat criminal in planning these assaults upon his marriage while he was far away serving his country. If only he had not done those things that had turned her heart against him. But she had no sure knowledge that he really meant to change . . . or that he was capable of doing so. She must hold her own thoughts and actions steady.
My Dear Husband:
I had looked for your visit to be a welcome one, especially if you would conduct yourself as you had described in your letter of March fourth. Imagine my surprise to find this new letter postmarked Berlin.
I will ask the gentleman attendant upon Lord Liverpool to not only forward my letters but to ask him if it is possible that I may be advised how long the new assignment may last. While my attention is almost entirely directed at the shipbuilding, there are a number of things I must prepare for should you succeed in leaving the Continent.
You may have been informed that your half-brother has been sent to the same localities we visited last year. If not, I imagine this information will come as somewhat of a surprise. As a consequence of his departure, I have no contact with your family, either to learn of your Father’s actions, or your own success in having the mensa et thoro removed. It would seem that you are now in no position to know any better than I.
I would ask Aunt Caroline to write, but it seems less presumptuous of me to ask if you might request she would take his place. She has always been very gracious toward me and so may not consider my request an imposition. She may not even be aware that I have lost my previous correspondent.
She sat quietly re-reading her words, not quite sure what else she might find useful to discuss at such a great distance. She would not mention the questions about Chaplain Jenkins, although she did not know if Mr. Holmes had informed His Lordship. She felt that he may have mentioned something in a general way, but was inclined to expect he had only sent her the serious questions.
If her husband’s visit to Berlin was in any way connected with the “visits to allied capitals” Lord Paulit said was part of a new Admiralty stratagem, she may not see him until late into June. She really had little more that she might write . . . and he might not have the leisure to consider even that with the seriousness that the ending of their marriage might require.
The one matter that her father’s words had brought to mind was her need to ensure that any visit of her husband’s did not result in their cohabiting. It seemed all too likely that such congress might result in her becoming pregnant again, and that would overthrow all her plans and decisions.
She was assailed by worker unrest at the beginning of May. An Admiralty warrant had not arrived and their strong-box did not hold enough money for her to pay the outstanding wages for April. This affected not only her yards but the sub-contractors as well, whose payments always had to wait for her to receive their invoices.
A group of more than a hundred men, many with wives and children, met her as she emerged from the kirk on Sunday.
“We need us’n pay, me Ladyship,” one of her riveters said, doffing his cap as he stepped up to her on the church steps.
“You will have your money, John, just as soon as I receive the Admiralty warrant for the work we have done.”
Another man stepped out of the crowd in the road. “Us needs cash nah, Lady. The chill’ern ha’nt been fed.”
Aunt Nelly stood beside her. “Good Heavens, ye men, can ye nay trust my niece for a little while longer?”
“Wha’? Trust fer promises?”
One of the wives stepped out of the crowd. “My bairns have had only half a crust apiece since Thursday. I doubts thee have ever eaten as little.”
Roberta came down the steps toward her. “That is terrible―I had no idea. But all I can promise is to go to the bank for a loan tomorrow.”
“Have ye nort fur jus’ one day’s wages, Ma’am. Chill’ern need food fer today.”
Mr. Stephenson emerged from the kirk to see the crowd. “I have never cheated a man out o’ wages in my life. Let my daughter and I discuss this.” He took her aside. “If you go begging for a bank loan tomorrow, we will have every supplier in Scotland send in the bailiffs the very next day. ’Tis well known that an Admiralty warrant may not be honoured until it pleases the Crown―and then have to be sold at a discount. ’Twould be a verra slippery slope to walk on.”
“But the First Lord has never let us down before―the country needs our ships at sea.”
“I know, but maybe sommat is beyond his control this time. Where might we find money?”
“How much do thee need?”
Roberta turned to see Angus Urquhart had descended the church steps behind them with several of his people and several of hers.
“Do you have a plan in mind, Mr. Urquhart?”
He shrugged. “It seems to me we have worked well together in good times, and now is hardly bad. The Admiralty is no more than late. Surely we can find enough brass to feed the children?”
Roberta looked toward Clara Brad who stood close by. “How much are we short, Clara?”
“Seven hundred pounds, give or take a few,” she said. “Some of that could be met by delaying our payment to the railway works at Newcastle.”
Roberta gave her father a questioning look. “Can we risk making them short?”
“I must visit them on my way south very soon. I have notes I can call in there.”
Urquhart looked at the man behind him, another of their shipbuilding contractors. “I can find two hundred pounds . . . say for two months at two percent. What about you, Mr. Nellis?”
“Are we loaning?” Nellis asked.
“Better we should make the interest than the bankers,” Urquhart said with a smile. “Can we raise another two?”
“Aye.”
“Then what do ye say, Stephenson?”
“I will borrow your money, but I’ll trouble you not to make an announcement throughout the country. Will that do, Roberta?”
“Yes, Father. I will see no one’s children go short.”
Before the end of May there were five completed spitefuls at Chatham, with four of them ready for sea duty. With advice from Commander Worthington, seconded by Captain Hawke, there were two of them on watch with the Westerschelde blockading ships at all times. Fortunately, the French had not attempted to repeat their foray in strength, although Nicholas van Aa, now back at Neuzen, reported their regular steam trials within the estuary.
Roberta had heard nothing further about the decision to withdraw the spitefuls from the French side of the Channel to wait in the Downs for the first move of the invasion fleet from Boulogne. That did not mean the dissension had ended; she knew the officer class were totally wedded to the pecking order among senior ranks and it was unthinkable to most of them that an Admiral should not be in charge. The elderly Admiral Pierce at Chatham was still entertained by the wonders of steam, but he could not be expected to make critical decisions that might affect the fate of the country.
Even a Nelson might be expected to balk at being given command of ships so untried for such a vital task. The Spiteful had been in action twice, with no small success, but that merely raised the stakes for any future battles. To the earlier actions against lesser foes was now added the certainty that a future action would include the more powerful French ironclad. One might blame the stubbornness of the senior officers of the service that no more experienced men had been given the opportunity to learn the ways of commanding steamships, but the requirement was too new. As the First Lord had said at the meeting where she first heard him this was the greatest threat the country had met in three hundred years.
In the shipyard, however, she now had the Antiochus launched and afloat and was busy supervising the installation of the machinery. Her father had now entirely taken over the supervision of the three spitefuls being built on the Clyde, one of them the last unit at their own yard, which was not expected to be completed by the time the invasion became a reality. The delays and changes to Antiochus had
been entirely responsible for the slippage.
Mr. Stephenson went south in the middle of the month to inspect the railway constructions and plans of his two engineers for the military railways in Kent. Roberta heard nothing of these inspections until her father returned.
“The lads have done well, considering,” he said. “No one has ever thought to build a railway line to supply an army in the field before.”
“Hardly in the field, Father. They are in the apple orchards of Kent,” Roberta said.
“To hear the Field Marshal talk you would think Napoleon was already at Canterbury. He expects their work to be to regimental standard before even his quartermasters know what they need.”
“You speak of the Marquess of Wellington?” Roberta asked.
“Aye, Field Marshal Wellesley. He have done wonders in Spain, but it is through being better prepared than the French. He is a hard taskmaster for poor Postlethwait, who has to invent the organization of a railway even as the track is laid. If they still plan to move you and the Antiochus to Chatham, I should like you to go and speak to him.”
“Me speak to him? Oh, Father I am on good terms with the First Lord—not an advocate to change the minds of any and all officials in England. I know steamships, but I would not presume to speak to the commander about organising an army.”
“Yes. I see you are right.”
“Did you point out to the Marquess that Postlethwait might do better if the Army gave him hard and fast plans for the design and operation?”
“I did venture some words to that effect, but I do not know if he listened. I would like us to write him a letter setting out our opinions of the railway building . . . if you will assist me.”
“The army needs an expert’s brain . . . as much as we gained from having Mr. Holmes to help us, but I do not know if there is another such. I will help as much as I can. I can offer nothing less since I will leave all the spiteful management to you when I leave Glasgow with the Antiochus.”
Roberta received a much less demanding letter from her husband at about this time. He no longer attempted to barrage her with questions and demands and agreed that such discussion might properly be ventured into when they should meet. Even his attempts at sweet-talking her were lessened. This letter was postmarked St. Petersburg and he wrote several good-natured pages of description about Russia and its capital city. He also ventured into some boasting, since he had learned useful information from Russia’s commanding general that Viscount Castlereagh had not learned from the Tsar.
I had a lengthy chat with Wittgenstein the other day. The Field Marshal was unusually open. It seems that his forthcoming command might prove less than ideal for a soldier wanting to prove himself. After the Tsar retired Kutuzov, the wily old soldier who had made Napoleon kick his heels in Moscow when he had hoped to conquer all Russia, the Tsar was little pleased that the old man’s death soon after had made him the saviour of Russia instead of the country’s ruler.
As a result, Wittgenstein will not have absolute control over the Russian army. Half of it will be assigned to the Army of Silesia under Prussia’s Field Marshal Blücher and the other half to the Army of Bohemia under Austria’s Field Marshal Schwarzenberg. Even more to no general’s liking, the three monarchs will take to the field and supervise the commanders from Schwarzenberg’s headquarters. It should prove to be the most hidebound army in history, I dread to think what blunderers Napoleon will make of them.
Roberta wondered whether her husband should be sending such information to her; he had not done so before. Perhaps he felt the information would fall to the French in good time and he might use it to impress his wife what an erudite husband she had married. He complained again that she did not write him enough, but did at least inform her that the letters newly addressed were reaching him safely, and that the next should be sent to him care of the British Embassy in Vienna.
Chapter Thirty-one
A Word from an Old Friend
When Roberta guided the Antiochus to a mooring off Sheerness to await a pilot boat, it was the end of the strangest voyage she had ever made. Antiochus was no more than three quarters complete, the bridge structure was of wood closed about with canvas, the accommodation below somewhat of an army bivouac with two rows of canvas tents nailed to a temporary main deck of pine boards.
The engines and boilers were in their designed mountings, the paddlewheels soundly affixed at the stern―no room for extempore housings here; the ship’s sides were complete and riveted up to the weather deck; most of the armour plate was bolted in, but the redoubts for the bow 32 pounders were empty shells and the casemates for the 4 pounders just chalk marks on the iron of the weather deck. Only the coal bunkers closest to the boilers existed, the rest of the coal was stacked in hundredweight bags on the floor of the hold.
Roberta had her naval signaller on the bridge send a thank-you message to the naval tug that had accompanied them from the Clyde, as its commander turned for home. The tug gave a return salute on its steam whistle.
She walked to the voice pipe near the quartermaster at the wheel and blew down the metal tube. She put her ear to it, waiting for a voice to sound amid the racket of the engines.
A voice answered, faint amidst the engineroom sounds. “Grandin here.”
“We are mooring to the outer buoy to wait for a pilot, Elizabeth. Keep some steam up until you hear differently. I have no idea how long we must wait.”
“Aye aye, Skipper. I will wake the sluggards up with a few blasts on the steam whistle if the pilot house crew have fallen asleep.”
Roberta turned her head to answer. “You might do that if you need to vent some steam.” She waited for a last acknowledgement before turning to the watch officer, a young Lieutenant from Commander Worthington’s spiteful school. “I am going below, Bates. You can enter the time we are securely moored to the buoy into the log.”
“Aye aye, Captain. It will be dark in eight bells. Will we enter harbour in the dark?”
“I think not. This ship is nearly three times the length of a spiteful that I have brought in before. If we see no pilot within four bells, send me word and I will order hands down until first light.”
“Aye aye, My Lady.”
Symington Holmes stood in the bow of a local spritsail fishing boat with a storm lantern shuttered closed in his hands. The night was moonless, and all he could see of the clouds were shadows flying across the stars like hurrying ghosts. The moderate wind and splash of the wake at their bow prevented him from hearing any sounds of a steamship at anchor that he might expect.
By his reckoning he was close to the buoy where Worthington said he would anchor, but he knew himself neither sailor nor navigator. Managing to make a small voyage like this without becoming near comatose from sea-sickness was as close as he might come to be fit for something at sea. At least the man who owned the craft had said he knew the buoy and would take him there.
He had taken Nicholas van Aa’s post at Neuzen, with a good contact to the British blockading squadron off Walcheren Island from a group of Dutch patriots. His job had been to report all sightings of French steamships and invasion craft in the Westerschelde to the Admiralty. Now in Antwerp, van Aa was sending him information about the French readiness in the city among both troops and shipping. They also waited for news of Napoleon’s arrival, which would signal the nearness of the order to begin the invasion. Napoleon had supposedly issued a date for this to commence, but the information had been revealed as a false rumour, or even a deliberate falsehood.
“We are near,” he heard the fisherman at the tiller in the stern say.
At that moment he smelled the unmistakable reek of the ship’s coal fires. He still did not know which way to look but he chanced pointing the lantern at a star he thought he recognised and briefly opened the shutter. A faint illumination showed up dancing waves ahead of their careful progress. Then it came.
Somewhere in the dark he heard the sound of steam being vented. The Spiteful must be
very close. He turned to the man in the stern and pointed in the direction the sound seemed to have come from.
“Aye, Monsieur.”
Another few minutes and his craft came alongside a dark iron wall looming above him. “Ahoy, there. Spiteful ahoy,” he called in a soft voice.
“Identify yourself,” came a voice from the deck above.
“It is Holmes. I need to speak with the Commander.”
“I will send for him. Throw us a line and we will secure you alongside.”
The young lad who made up the whole crew for the owner came forward at Holmes’ signal and tossed a mooring line upwards into the beam of light cast by the storm lantern. By the time the craft was secured he heard Worthington’s voice above. “Is that you, Mr. Holmes? Are you alone?”
“It is, Commander Worthington. Only me and the two men who guide the craft. Can I come up?”
“Yes. Let down the rope ladder,” Worthington said to the lookout.
When he reached the deck, Worthington took him by the arm. “Come below so we may talk. There is a French sloop within two miles, just off Flushing. I cannot stay here long.”
Once in the commander’s small day cabin, the host turned up the oil lamps, took out the latest Admiralty orders, and poured them glasses of wine. “How is it in France this time, my friend? I hope you have a secure billet,” Worthington said as they seated themselves.
Scandal and Secrets Page 17
