An Ill Wind

by David Donachie

  Not now, obviously, and such a change could only have come from the captain. What had Barclay said about him? Was it just the truth of his distaste, supported by malevolence, or had he invented some tale to further blacken his name? The one thing which was certain was that he could not enquire, but he was damned if he was going to be discomfited by these fellows, so supine in their attitude to their superior that they eschewed any independence of mind.

  ‘I am looking forward to Gibraltar, as I am sure you are too,’ he said gaily. ‘We must all take a run ashore together, we being such boon companions.’

  The response was a series of coughs and splutters.

  Cornelius Gherson was sitting on a sea chest, in a screened-off cabin, lit only by a tallow wad guttering in a lantern, wondering at the import of what he had overheard. Having been a witness at Ralph Barclay’s court martial, as well as partaking in the discussions that had preceded it, he knew very well what a charade it had been, nothing more than a pretence set up and designed to exonerate him. Of all the witnesses who had spoken he had told the fewest lies, or if he had mouthed untruths, they had been of a nature difficult to challenge, either then or in the future, being impressions or recollections of one-to-one conversations.

  But he knew to what degree others had perjured themselves. Barclay himself had been wise enough to decline to say anything other than to accept his responsibilities as the captain of HMS Brilliant: whatever others had done, mistakenly or not, his commission meant the blame lay with him. It had been a telling defence, more likely prompted by the fear that his wife, being present, might blurt out that he was a liar, though there was some risk in his acceptance that the testimony of others had been truthful.

  The real danger to Barclay’s position did not lie with either of them but with the other witnesses, yet the only one journeying back to England with them was Devenow and he would cut out his tongue rather than let down a man he seemed to venerate. Toby Burns, the true weak spot, the one who could sink them all, and would do so were he ever put in a witness box, was still in Leghorn, as was the only other witness, a rat-faced one-time bosun’s mate called Kemp.

  Yet Pearce had spoken with confidence and that had to have some basis. Mulling over the possibilities, he would have said from his experience that to bring a case against the captain was not only foolhardy, it would be expensive and futile, unless…did Pearce have something apart from his companions, his stupidly named Pelicans, to support an accusation? They were hardly a threat: a known felon, a stripling of a boy run from his apprenticeship and a fellow of large frame and limited intelligence, an Irishman, not a race to be given too much credence in an English court.

  Self-centred in the extreme, though he would not have admitted it, Cornelius Gherson’s underlying concern was not for Ralph Barclay but for himself. He had attached himself to the man because being a clerk, a position for which he was admirably fitted, was a damn sight better than serving on the lower deck. If John Pearce had railed against being pressed into the navy he had not been more vociferous in his objections than the man now contemplating his own future. Gherson hated the smells, the filth, the ignorance of those he was obliged to mess with, and being ordered about by blue-coated fools as much as anyone.

  He was a man who had enjoyed comfort and yearned for nothing more than to return to that: to warm fires in good houses, with simple and compliant young wives wedded to older, busy men who required an assiduous clerk to oversee their personal affairs, too occupied to see that some of their hard-earned money was being siphoned off to their willing bookkeeper. That had been his life: he had had the benefit of good clothes, a full purse, usually wise enough to move on before matters reached the crisis of discovery. Only he had been caught out and that had led him to this place.

  He rarely thought about being chucked off London Bridge, it being such an unpleasant recollection, but he did so now. He could see the faces of the grinning toughs employed by Alderman Denby Carruthers, feel their hands as they first stripped him of his good clothes before lifting him bodily over the parapet, the sickening feeling in the pit of his belly as he fell, and the icy-cold shock of landing in the waters of the River Thames. He harboured no gratitude for the hand of the man in the boat, HMS Brilliant’s master-at-arms, who had grabbed his collar and saved his life.

  Taken aboard the frigate he was pressed like the others, low-life types whom he would have spat on in his previous life. His protests that he was a gentleman and thus outside the scope of the press gang had foundered on the fact that he was dressed in nothing but a shirt; indeed, his contention had provoked laughter, leaving him humiliated. Somehow, in his convoluted thinking, he managed to drag an image of John Pearce into that, so that all the hate he felt was fixed upon him. He and Pearce had clashed quickly, the man being an unctuous prig who saw himself as superior in every way, when he was nought but a jumped-up nobody, and that dislike had done nothing but deepen with the passing of time and acquaintance.

  ‘He must know he cannot bring a case without evidence,’ he said softly to himself. ‘Ergo, he must, as he so plainly said, have evidence.’

  Ralph Barclay would get another ship, probably one a great deal larger than HMS Brilliant. The opportunities for peculation were high in the King’s Navy and one asset Barclay had was his lack of any false morality. He was as prepared to pilfer as any man should be, this as long as it was carefully done, and in Cornelius Gherson he had a man of some expertise. It was Gherson who had set up the removal of goods from the Toulon stores; he who had dealt with the various French officials, trading valuable commodities for a promise of evacuation.

  Yet it would have been pointless without Ralph Barclay: only he could sanction and cover the use of the ship’s holds to store the purloined goods. If that enterprise had ultimately failed to produce a profit he was sure there would be others. That was why he had stuck with the man: he did not like him much, but that mattered less than his prospects. He was in the top third of the captain’s list during a war that could last for years. Commanding a ship he could line both their pockets, and should time allow him to advance to the rank of commodore or admiral, the sky was the limit. As for life in the navy, if it had its unpleasant side Gherson could live with that, given he had no idea if life ashore was still dangerous: if the man he had robbed and cuckolded found out he had survived, he might seek to dispose of him a second time.

  He had to force his mind away from pleasant speculations of future wealth onto the present problem: how to confound John Pearce, if indeed he needed to be confounded. He needed to know what he had, or indeed if he had anything at all, and there was no point in asking the principal. What he needed was a weak link: Charlie Taverner and he shared the mutual loathing of two peas from the same pod, while nothing would be gained by seeking information from that brute O’Hagan.

  But Rufus Dommet was young and something of an idiot. He might reveal things supposed to be secret and not even know he was doing so. One other thing Gherson had to do must be acted upon right away: he must apprise Ralph Barclay of the possibility of the threat.

  Heinrich Lutyens was amused by the way Emily Barclay had repeatedly described John Pearce’s behaviour in Livorno as reprehensible; not endlessly, but somehow the subject had been alluded to more often than it should, given there was no connection between them other than social contact. Odd that all her troubles with her husband, though they had been deepened by his behaviour, had begun with her defence of the very same fellow; perhaps that was why she felt she could refer to him in such a proprietary way.

  Whatever excuse Ralph Barclay had come up with to flog John Pearce it had been more to do with the familiar way the man addressed his wife than for any offence listed in the Articles of War, and Emily had made her displeasure at his actions as plain to him as had the crew of the frigate: the whole affair had hurt Barclay much more than his supposed victim. But it was really the court martial, which she had attended even though she had been forbidden to do so, which had ripped a seemi
ngly irreparable tear in their marriage.

  Cunningly it had been arranged to take place when several witnesses who would have damned Ralph Barclay were away on another duty, courtesy of Admiral Hotham, the verdict coming as a shock on Pearce’s return, especially when he discovered that none of the written depositions he and the Pelicans had dictated to one of Hotham’s clerks had been introduced as testimony.

  ‘You may say what you wish, Heinrich, about the lax morals of the Latins, but to me, the vision of a British officer being required to flee the bedroom of a married woman is shocking.’

  ‘I fear you would find the behaviour of most British naval officers shocking, my dear.’

  Working as she was on her embroidery, the needle moved more speedily as an indication of her discomfort: if he had not mentioned the whorehouses of Livorno he was alluding to them. ‘Then I hope you will forbear to enlighten me.’

  ‘There was one tale I heard that is amusing.’ Seeing her lift both head and eyebrows, he continued. ‘Do you know the name Hervey?’

  ‘Is that not the name of the earls of Bristol?’

  ‘Indeed, coming from Somerset I thought you would know it. A family of bishops and politicians to boot, though it is one of their number who was a post captain, a certain Augustus Hervey, who generated this tale. Seemingly he was based in Leghorn during the Seven Years’ conflict and was such a Lothario, and so enamoured of those loose Latin morals you so deplore, he managed to father some fifty bastards.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘Perhaps to put in some context the behaviour of John Pearce, whom you seem eager to condemn. Compared to Hervey he is a novice.’

  ‘Two wrongs do not make a right.’

  ‘Nor do fifty, my dear, and nor does your continuing refusal to share the quarters of your husband.’

  That stopped the needle but she still looked at the threaded pattern. ‘I thought you, of all people, Heinrich, would not seek to chastise me for that.’

  ‘I do not seek to chastise you, my dear, merely to point out to you that none of us are perfect. I would also point out, and I do this out of regard for you, that tongues are wagging aboard this ship as they were in Toulon. It was a mistake to decline to join your husband for dinner with Captain Daws. That will be remarked upon.’

  ‘I cannot help it. The thought of sitting in pretence, of behaving as if all is well, appals me.’

  ‘Perhaps it does, but I think you must turn your mind to how you are going to behave once we are back in England. Such an attitude will not serve.’

  ‘Do you think I have not thought about it already?’

  ‘And?’

  Tears wetted her eyes and affected her voice as she replied. ‘I am at a loss to know what to do.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Getting into the Bay of Algeciras was difficult at any time, lying as it did on the western side of the Rock of Gibraltar. The tidal flow into the Mediterranean was strong and it needed a good wind from the east to weather Punta Europa; for two days the wind was, while not dead foul, far from helpful, so HMS Grampus was required to beat up, tack on tack, to make any headway. The delay gave Gherson time to seek to isolate Rufus Dommet, something he utterly failed to achieve.

  Every time he got within ten feet of the youngster, Rufus sought out Charlie Taverner and a glare from that source was enough to stop Gherson in his tracks. Forced to seek an accommodation with Taverner, he was exposed to a stream of loud and foul abuse, as well as a question from Michael O’Hagan as to his ability to swim.

  Frustrated, he sought out Devenow to seek his aid, well aware that the brute had reservations about him, jealousy of a man closer to his captain than he. The conversation was not one to produce a conclusion, but Devenow was vocal about one thing: the way the Pelicans were sure they were free men. In the end, it was Rufus who underlined that belief by boasting, within the hearing of another sailor, one Devenow was successfully able to bully, that the order for their release from the navy came from the mighty Sam Hood himself, a point Gherson made to his employer.

  ‘Why, Captain Barclay, would Lord Hood do that if he had no reason?’

  Ralph Barclay, mulling on that question, was aware he should have been more curious from the very beginning about the presence of Pearce and his friends on board HMS Grampus, though he did grant himself some leeway for the fact of his lost arm. The mere fact that they were travelling back to England should have alerted him to something, even if he knew not what.

  ‘That alone makes me doubly suspicious,’ Gherson added.

  ‘Doubly?’

  Gherson was good at extracting advantage from scanty knowledge, a necessary gift if you wanted to become someone on whom your principal relied; thus his hesitation and the adoption of the look which accompanied it, of deep thought mixed with an air of doubt, meant to convey that he was not sure he should speak at all. He had, unfortunately, forgotten the level of impatience innate to the man with whom he was dealing.

  ‘Do not trifle with me, Gherson. If you have something to impart, do it and cut out the play-acting.’

  The wish to protest died in the face of Ralph Barclay’s glare, yet there was some pleasure to be obtained from being just a little brusque. ‘I overheard John Pearce say he expects to see you in the dock, that followed by gaol, and he used an expression which implied the charge would be perjury.’

  The word struck Ralph Barclay hard, so hard he had trouble in retaining an equable countenance, and at that moment his lost arm was a blessing, the act of easing it providing time to swallow the import of what had just been said.

  ‘He is a man prone to bluster, Gherson,’ he said eventually.

  ‘He is, sir, as we both know, a man prone to many things. What we don’t know is plain. Was he engaging in bluster, or speaking the truth?’

  ‘How could he be?’

  ‘If I may be allowed to quote him, sir, he said that with the evidence he had he would see you in the dock.’

  Ralph Barclay was not looking at Gherson anymore, he was looking at his own knees, his mind set to racing by the word ‘evidence’. As sharp to his own advantage as the man before him, it took only seconds to run through the various scenarios that would give some substance to those repeated words. Hotham was a treacherous sod, of that he was sure – all admirals were – but he could not drop him in the soup without being damaged himself, and he could discount Devenow or Kemp. For a fleeting moment he wondered if Gherson was playing a double game, before dismissing that too.

  In his mind’s eye he was back in that cabin-cum-courtroom, with the faces of the men who had judged him prominent. They would stand by their verdict or risk looking foolish, but there were two people present who could damage him and it gave him no pleasure to think one of them was his own wife. Yet she was barred from testifying against him by that very relationship, which left only her nephew Toby Burns. Had that little cowardly toad given something to Pearce that could hurt him, and if he had, what could it be?

  ‘You will, I suspect, sir, have arrived at the same conclusion as me?’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Mr Burns.’

  ‘He is still aboard HMS Britannia.’

  ‘Perhaps he made a deposition.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘We were in Leghorn for ten days.’

  ‘No, Gherson, the boy hates Pearce as much as I do. If he saw the bastard he would run a mile. Besides, any deposition would have to be witnessed by some kind of notary…’

  ‘Or perhaps another post captain.’

  ‘Who was Pearce friendly with?’

  ‘I believe he got on rather well with Captain Nelson, though there may be others we have no knowledge of.’ Seeing the effect that had on his employer, the implication that he was unpopular in places of which he had no knowledge, Gherson continued quickly. ‘I confess, sir, I am unsure if deposing an affidavit to a post captain would carry the necessary weight to imperil anyone.’

  ‘Sorry, Gherson, it won’t wash, no
t with Toby Burns.’

  Cornelius Gherson knew that another name had come to Ralph Barclay’s mind before he spoke, just by the look, a mixture of hate and alarm, which swept across his face. When he spat the name, it made perfect sense.

  ‘Hood!’

  ‘Did he not confirm the conclusion of the court, sir, as he was bound to do as commander-in-chief?’

  ‘He would not have done it with any pleasure, given he has little regard for me.’

  ‘Lack enough to admit his confirmation was a sham? Surely the one cancels out the other and leaves only malice as a motive, which would be easy to discredit with a good advocate.’

  Ralph Barclay’s eyes narrowed as he looked at his clerk. ‘You seem to know a lot about the law, Gherson.’

  ‘I know enough, sir, to be sure that the verdict in any case is never certain.’ He nearly added ‘except your court martial’, but thought better of it. ‘And that applies to both the plaintiff and the accused.’

  ‘Say Pearce has something, whatever it is must be aboard with him.’

  ‘And he is berthed in the wardroom, to which we do not have access.’

  From looking pensive, Ralph Barclay suddenly brightened up. ‘We’re making for Gibraltar, Gherson, and I know it to be a place where every officer, marines included, excepting the poor fellow left on watch, will go ashore. With the watch officer on deck that means the wardroom will be unoccupied.’

  The look Ralph Barclay was giving Gherson made his stomach turn over: there was no way a one-armed post captain still convalescent could go skulking about a ship, even if it was at anchor. His employer was telling him, when it came to going through the belongings of John Pearce, it was a job for him.

  ‘There will still be the wardroom servants,’ he replied, trying to keep a note of panic out of his voice: he was not averse to theft, it was getting caught which bothered him.