Hind was turning in to starboard. Midshipman Pelham, whom Peto had detailed to see Rebecca safely down, stepped forward smartly and saluted.
But that had been earlier; there was nothing pressing on the captain’s attention now. ‘I shall accompany Miss Codrington myself, Mr Pelham.’
‘Ay-ay, sir.’ The voice betrayed only as much disappointment as the midshipman dared – which was but a very little.
Hind ran in alongside with exemplary ease. It was, after all, a fleet cutter’s purpose to dart from ship to ship thus. She had been built to overhaul smugglers, and rigged to outmanoeuvre the handiest of them. Her master, a stocky man, a lieutenant perhaps not yet thirty, but with a wide, honest face – a man who might look useful in a boarding party – leapt for the gangway and came up briskly to the entry port. Seeing Rupert’s captain waiting for him at the top, rather than the midshipman he had expected, he saluted him, rather than the quarterdeck, just in time (for Peto’s humour was sorely tried by the business). He quickly regained his poise, however, smiling with such manifest cheer that Peto was at once deflected from any rebuke over the tardiness of his arrival. Indeed, having watched him handle the cutter, Peto was at once assured that he could perfectly entrust the admiral’s daughter – and the ship’s women – to such an active and engaging man as he.
‘Robb, sir. The admiral’s compliments, and would you be so good as to read these supplementary orders.’ The lieutenant held out an oilskin package.
As Peto took it, there was a single cannon shot from the Asia. He stepped out onto the gangway for a better look. The flagship firing thus meant but one thing: she drew attention to an imperative flag signal. He cursed, thinking that his lookouts had not seen it.
Lieutenant Robb at once had his telescope to his eye. Peto’s was on the quarterdeck, which made him crosser still – not that he could have been expected to read the commander-in-chief’s signals without a codebook.
Robb could, however (as commander of Asia’s tender he had a thorough acquaintance with the codes; cutting about the fleet, he lived by them, indeed). ‘ “Prepare to enter”!’
The next second, Robb was saluting again and taking his leave.
Peto’s mouth fell open. ‘Avast there, Mr Robb!’ he spluttered. ‘Where do you go? Take the women down, sir! I’ll read my orders first, damn it! They may require an answer!’ (though what answer was needed when the admiral signalled ‘prepare to enter’ he would have been hard put to suggest).
Robb looked puzzled. ‘Sir, with respect, I cannot now take off anyone with the flag signalling action. I am the flagship’s tender. My place in action is alongside her.’
‘Mr Robb, your orders were – were they not? – to take off the admiral’s daughter!’
‘Sir, with the very greatest respect, my orders were to give such assistance as I might, but the admiral’s signal is general to the fleet. As tender I must return at once.’
Peto’s face turned as red as the marine sentry’s jacket next to him, as if he would explode with all the violence of a carronade.
But he did not explode – just as if the gunner had stopped the flint with his hand. For he knew he would do the same as Robb were he master of the flagship’s tender. Hind was Codrington’s Mercury after all. The admiral would have need of this young officer and his cutter almost as much as he would have need of his flag lieutenant.
From the corner of his eye he could see the line of women, Rebecca and her maid at the head, for all the world like passengers on a packet come into Dover harbour. He sighed, but to himself (he would reveal nothing more of his dismay). ‘Very well, Mr Robb, but you will wait until I read through my orders!’
‘Ay-ay, sir!’ Robb was astute enough to know that a minute or so would make little difference to him, but in the circumstances a very great deal to a post-captain’s pride.
Peto opened his orders and read them rapidly. ‘No reply necessary,’ he growled, refolding them. ‘Good luck to you, Mr Robb. You may dismiss.’
Robb looked relieved. ‘Ay-ay, sir. And good luck to your ship too.’ He saluted again, adding cheerfully, ‘We shall next meet in the bay, I imagine, sir.’
Peto nodded, then watched him scuttle down the gangway, recollecting his own youthful, even carefree commands, before resolutely turning inboard.
‘Miss Codrington, ladies,’ he began, gravely but with every appearance of easy confidence, ‘I am obliged to offer you the continuing hospitality of my ship. Mr Corbishley, you are to escort Miss Codrington to the purser’s quarters; and,’ glancing at the boatswain, ‘Mr Mills, have the ladies conducted to the surgeon’s.’ He would have them all safely confined to the orlop deck, below the waterline, but at different quarters: if he could not get Rebecca Codrington off, he could at least keep her from the company of the ship’s women – whose conduct was certain now to be the ruder.
‘Ay-ay, sir.’
He turned once more to Rebecca. ‘Miss Codrington, you will be perfectly safe, no matter what the action on deck.’ Which was without doubt true unless there was a catastrophic explosion. He cleared his throat once more, as if something did genuinely inhibit what he would say. He bowed. ‘Until . . . until we are anchored at Navarino, then.’
Rebecca curtsied, but before she could reply, Peto had turned.
‘Make sail!’ he boomed, striding for the companion ladder as if with no thought in his mind but to close with the Turk.
XVII
THE UNTOWARD EVENT
A quarter of an hour later
‘Full and by, Mr Lambe.’
‘Ay-ay, sir,’ replied the lieutenant. ‘Full and by, Mr Veitch.’
‘Full and by, ay-ay, sir!’ replied the quartermaster, through teeth clenched on unlit pipe.
With a full course set, and studding-sails low and aloft, he would have his work cut out.
‘Very well, Mr Lambe, the admiral’s orders . . .’ Peto turned and advanced to the weather rail, more symbolic of privacy, now, with so many men at the quarterdeck guns. ‘Codrington intends entering the bay, Asia leading, then the French and after them the Russians. You will recall that the Turks – and when I say Turks I mean also the Egyptians – are drawn up in a horseshoe.’
Lambe nodded.
‘The fleet will anchor alongside the Turks exactly as I described. As you perceive, Codrington no longer wishes Rupert to stand off but to take station in the entrance to the bay to suppress the shore batteries on either side if they open fire. I can only conclude thereby that he believes it will assuredly come to a fight.’
Lambe nodded again, gravely. The entrance to the bay was not a mile wide:Rupert’s guns would play very well with the forts, but any half decent shore battery would have their range with the first shot.
‘Codrington’s advice is that the fort at New Navarin, to starboard, is the stronger. There’s a small, rocky islet to larboard which masks the fort on Sphacteria. If there were time we might first deal with Navarin and then Sphacteria, but I suspect we shall have no choice but to engage both at once, since the admiral will wish to close with the Turkish ships without delay if the forts signal any resistance. There are fireships, too.’
Lambe looked even more grave. ‘A regular powder keg, sir.’
‘Just so. We will take station now behind the flag, with Genoa abaft of us.’
‘Ay-ay, sir.’
Peto put his glass to his eye to see if Asia was signalling anew, but her main-mast halyard bore the same as before. Codrington was evidently standing well out to give the French and Russian squadrons time to catch up before turning for the bay.
The marine sentry struck the half hour – six bells.
‘Very well, Mr Lambe: secure guns, and have the boatswain pipe hands to dinner.’
‘Ay-ay, sir!’
Flowerdew advanced with a silver tray and coffee. There were two cups, as always (except when Rebecca had been on deck, when there were three), in case the captain wished to take his coffee with another. But Peto chose not to be sociable a
t this moment.
‘Might you procure me an apple?’ Admiral Collingwood had munched on an apple as his line ran in at Trafalgar, a fine tradition of sangfroid in which to follow.
‘They’re a deal wormy,’ Flowerdew protested.
‘Even so.’
Peto took the cup, and extra sugar, stirring it for a minute and more without speaking. He drained it in one, and held it for Flowerdew to refill. ‘And I would have you attend on Miss Codrington in the purser’s quarters. Stay with her until the action is finished.’
He expected the usual protests.
Flowerdew surprised him, however. ‘I was going to ask.’
‘She will need reassurance if it comes to a fight.’
Flowerdew merely nodded.
Peto cleared his throat slightly. ‘Miss Codrington has letters . . . you’ll see to it that she is . . . able to get them away.’
‘I will.’
He cleared his throat again. ‘Good, good. Capital. Now, the apple if you please, and then you will go below.’
‘Ay-ay, sir.’
He would make a little more of it when the apple came – no sentiment or the like, but Flowerdew had been with him a good many years.
Left alone again, he reached into his pocket and took out Elizabeth’s letter (it might be his last opportunity to read it for some time). He unwrapped the oilskin package with a reverence some might accord a relic, and held the folded sheet for several minutes without opening it.
‘Flagship signalling, sir!’ Midshipman Pelham’s voice revealed the pride with which he alerted his captain.
Peto carefully returned the letter to its oilskin, and his pocket, and took out his watch: it was just gone one-thirty after noon. It was a slower affair by far than Trafalgar, but at Trafalgar they could see the enemy, unlike here. Until now, when the bay opened up before them . . .
‘It can be but the one signal, I imagine, Mr Lambe,’ he said (Asia was a mere couple of cables ahead, and with no room to go about even had Codrington wished it).
‘From flag, sir: “prepare for action”!’
Peto quickened as if by an electric shock. ‘Run out all guns, double-shotted, Mr Lambe!’
‘Ay-ay, sir!’
He had drummed hands back to quarters after dinner with ‘Hearts of Oak’. They had stood or crouched by gun and hatch since, awaiting the order. The entire crew now sprang to frenzied life as if they too had been charged with electricity.
Peto closed to the quartermaster’s side. It was time to take the con directly. ‘One point a-larboard, Mr Veitch!’
‘One point a-larboard, ay-ay, sir!’
He put his glass to his eye again: the Turk forts would see the guns run out; might he see some activity by reply?
‘Captain Antrobus!’
The captain of marines crossed the quarterdeck briskly, and saluted.
‘Yonder fort,’ said Peto, pointing to Sphacteria. ‘Should we need to carry it, it may fall to you and a landing party.’
‘There is nothing I should like better, sir.’
‘We might spare, say, fifty men, perhaps sixty.’ The complement of marines was 138, of whom half had fixed fighting stations; the rest deployed as sharpshooters in the tops and upperworks.
‘Thirty of my men, I suggest, sir, and the same from the afterguard.’
Peto nodded. ‘Very well. Make ready.’ He turned to hail Lambe. ‘Lower two boats, in anticipation, and detail thirty of the afterguard to Captain Antrobus.’
Lambe rattled off the executives to the boatswain and the captain of the afterguard.
The guns running out sounded like distant thunder, noise enough to alert the dullest lookout. Which of the forts would be first to fire? Or would it be the Turk flagship?
Fifteen long minutes passed in silence but for the voice of timber and rigging, and the occasional yap of a petty officer. Asia was now within pistol shot of the entrance, but still the forts were unmoved.
‘I can scarcely credit it,’ declared Peto, spying out every detail of Sphacteria with his ’scope. ‘They’re lounging on the walls, smoking!’ He swung round towards New Navarin. It was the same. ‘Nothing, nothing at all! Not a flag flying or the like. Extraordinary!’ He recalled Ava, when they had sailed up the Rangoon River, the wooden fort sullenly silent, until too late, when the Burmans had fired a futile, suicidal shot at his flotilla. Was the Turk just going to allow them to sail into the bay and take possession of the fleet?
A cannon boomed on Sphacteria. Peto swung round.
‘Unshotted, sir,’ said Lambe. ‘I wonder they’re signalling: the whole Turk fleet must be able to see Asia now.’
Peto nodded. ‘How do you judge the current, Mr Veitch?’
‘Little or none, sir.’
He had thought as much. He would have to bring Rupert round a point or two into the wind to heave to; dropping anchor, even with a spring attached, was out of the question under those guns – and he wanted to have his broadsides as square-on as might be. ‘Prepare to heave to.’
Lambe hailed the sailing-master: ‘Prepare to back main-topsail, Mr Shand.’
Veitch brought Rupert into the wind.
Peto judged it the moment. ‘Heave to!’
The topmen did their work fast and sure. Shand barely needed his trumpet.
‘Boat ahoy!’
Peto looked up, cupping a hand to his mouth. ‘More advice if you please, Mr Simpson!’
‘Pinnace, sir, I believe from the Turkish flagship, heading straight for Asia!’
‘Indeed,’ said Peto to himself, though clearly audible to Lambe.
‘The Turks submitting, sir? The only reasonable course.’
‘The only reasonable course, Mr Lambe, as you say. But what Turkish admiral could present himself in Constantinople in consequence? No, I think there’s a deal of joukery yet ahead.’
‘And a deal of powder for the Turk to hoist himself with.’
Peto looked at the horseshoe of men-of-war. There were no three-deckers, but if it came to a fight they would be closer engaged than ever Nelson managed at Trafalgar. ‘Have the fo’c’s’le lookouts keep a sharp eye on those brûlots yonder,’ he said, pointing ahead and to starboard. ‘It’ll be like the burning fiery furnace if they’re loosed.’
Lambe sent a midshipman forward with the word.
Peto was now intent on the pinnace. What terms did the Turkish admiral propose? Rupert’s crew – the crew of every one of Codrington’s ships, indeed – would be disappointed if he struck without a fight. But the cost would be high if he did otherwise. Peto did not doubt that every Turkish ship would end at the bottom, but the lack of sea space would mean a good number of allied ships might go down with them. He turned to the forts again: the guns commanded the entrance rather than the bay itself; once the squadrons were in there would be no need of Rupert’s fire. Where might he then place himself to advantage?
A quarter of an hour went by in the same silence. Genoa and then Albion passed him, their captains acknowledging his quarterdeck, but no cheering as at Trafalgar. ‘Recollect, gentlemen,’ Codrington had insisted, ‘that no act of hostility is to be attempted by us on any account.’ Neither were they to provoke a fire, and cheering was bound to inflame a proud Turk.
Asia dropped anchor alongside the Turkish flag.
Lambe, intent for the moment only on the trim of Rupert’s sails, acknowledged the report without looking.
‘And the pinnace makes for the shore,’ added Peto. He checked his watch. ‘Ten minutes past two o’clock. Make note of that, Treves,’ he said to his clerk, touching his hat now to Dartmouth, the first of the frigates, passing so close on the starboard beam that he could have exchanged words with his old friend Captain Fellowes without much raising his voice. He rather envied him: a frigate would be a veritable cat among the pigeons in such an affair, able to manoeuvre with far greater facility than Rupert. And, at forty-four guns, by no means incapable of crippling a two-decker with raking fire.
He turned bac
k to the pinnace. What did she do thence to New Navarin? But Asia made no fresh signal: there was no change in Codrington’s design.
Dartmouth bore to starboard as she entered the bay, making for the fireships to the south-east, while the rest of the squadron advanced steadily, line-ahead. The pinnace reached the south shore. Peto observed an officer jump out, throw off his turban and race up the hill to the gate of the fort, where others had assembled. There was a hurried conference, and then a red flag was run up on the walls. A gun fired, again unshotted. But still Peto could detect no activity on Sphacteria: the gunners remained entirely at ease (and in spite of the flag and the signal gun, New Navarin looked no more lively). Was it a ruse? Did the Turks want them to enter the bay?
‘Boat ahoy!’
This time Peto would wait for Midshipman Simpson to gather his advice, since evidently his eye was to be trusted.
In a couple of minutes he had it: ‘Barge from the Turkish flag to the Egyptian flag, sir!’
Ten minutes passed as silently as before.
‘Boat ahoy!’
Peto imagined it too would now be making for New Navarin. ‘Deuced queer business, this, Mr Lambe. You might suppose we’d taken them by surprise.’
‘Indeed, sir.’
He contemplated going forward for a better look, but checked the instinct. His place was on the quarterdeck. And besides, it mattered little what he saw: he could take no action until they were fired on.
‘Barge making for fireships, sir!’
This was it! He put his telescope under his arm, clasped his hands behind his back and concentrated hard on giving no appearance of agitation.
The captain of marines came up. ‘Sir, might I get the landing party into the boats, ready? It will be tricky otherwise once firing begins.’
Peto shook his head. ‘I can’t help it, Captain Antrobus. This is politics. The Turks will deem it a hostile act. I fear it must be “Tirez les premiers”.’
Antrobus looked disappointed, put out, even, as he saluted and took his leave. Peto wished he had been a little less peremptory with him. He had the highest regard for the marines’ offensive spirit.
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