‘Are they not all men?’
The lieutenant’s mousy wife spoke up then, really for the first time expressing an opinion. ‘Is it not men who suffer in war?’
‘Women suffer more,’ Mrs Lipton postulated loudly. ‘Are we not generally abandoned to anxiety?’
‘Over yonder is HMS Victory,’ said Emily, to get off that particular subject. ‘Lord Hood’s flagship.’
‘I am told he is too old for the task,’ Mrs Lipton replied, peering at the ship as if the planking would part to show her she was correct.
‘I would not know, Mrs Lipton, I have not had the privilege of meeting him.’
The eyes of the major’s wife narrowed then, and though she did not speak, her thoughts on that score were in both her expression and her silence. She would be, Emily instinctively knew, a woman who would understand absolutely the notion of interest, for it worked in the Army as much as it did in the Navy, not to mention society in general.
‘Yet you have been here, I seem to have understood, from the very time Lord Hood took over the port?’
‘From before that, Mrs Lipton. My husband and his crew were prisoners of the French when the fleet arrived offshore.’ Seeing those eyes widen, Emily added hastily, ‘And let me say that our captors behaved like perfect gentlemen.’
‘Is that not a pretty little ship approaching Victory?’
Both Emily and Mrs Lipton looked to the sight indicated by the lieutenant’s wife, to see HMS Faron come under the lee of the flagship, backing her topsails just as a boat was lowered into the water. Emily knew her lines, knew it was John Pearce’s ship, and wondered at the knot such knowledge produced in her stomach.
‘This shawl,’ moaned Mrs Lipton, ‘is scant protection against the wind, and surely the gentlemen are, by now, through with their ribaldry. Let us go indoors.’
She did not wait for agreement, her expression more of a command than a request. With a quick backward glance at the ship’s boat heading for the Victory’s entry port, Emily followed her.
The faint odour of stinking fish seemed still to be on their blue broadcloth coats when Digby and Pearce came aboard Hood’s flagship, to be kept waiting for over an hour, entertained in a spacious wardroom where they were not going to tell a soul of what had occurred at Villefranche. Pearce was forced, in order to deflect enquiries regarding their recent excursion, to do what he most disliked: fall back on tales of the actions in which he had participated, his words eagerly listened to by all the mids on the ship, who crowded by the wardroom door.
Digby held his own, with his tale of their escape from anchorage off La Rochelle and how they had foiled the pursuit, careful to confine himself to that, until word came that Hood himself was waiting to see them.
‘It was never possible, sir,’ Digby insisted, addressing Lord Hood, ‘to find out the feelings of the French naval officers. They were too afraid to advance any opinion.’
‘Perhaps, sir,’ Pearce said, ‘if you had gone yourself, the representatives might have paid you some heed.’
Hood looked at Pearce, and he saw in the look on his face the sarcasm of the words just aimed at him. In seeking to control his anger, he moved his body in such a way that he alerted Parker of the need to intercede.
‘Well, we must count the attempt as a failure. Let us hope those two frigates stay in Villefranche, eh! God forbid they should cruise between here and Genoa, or even worse between here and Naples.’
‘I think we have said enough,’ Hood snapped. ‘Best get back to your ship, while we sort out what we are going to do with you next.’
‘Am I to be allowed a private interview, sir?’
It was Parker who replied, and he looked at Pearce as if he had asked for a chest full of guineas. ‘Why?’
‘I do believe, sir, that I am owed access to certain information on Captain Barclay’s court martial.’
Digby was looking hard at him, no doubt thinking it unbecoming that he, Pearce’s superior, should be dragged into some activity for a private reason not to do with the service. Parker, on the other hand, reacted with all the unctuousness of which he was capable.
‘It is a tradition in the service, Lieutenant, to reward success, not to indulge failure.’
‘Is it also a tradition for admirals to tell barefaced lies?’
‘Pearce!’ Digby called, deeply shocked.
Hood actually burst out laughing. ‘You have no idea, lad, what a necessary adjunct that is to high command. Now, be so good as to leave.’
CHAPTER NINE
Ralph Barclay, having eaten well and drunk copiously, was in a somewhat restored mood at the conclusion of the dinner, that was until he recalled the interview that preceded it, something which occurred in a boat full of endemically curious seamen who had been obliged to wait for him throughout the visit. Entertained below decks in HMS Britannia, they were granted all the news of a ship in which few secrets were safe. The fact that a promotion had been proposed, only to be withdrawn, had been leaked by the lowest of Hotham’s clerks and was now common knowledge to the frigate’s barge crew. Knowing their captain as they did, it was fully expected some poor bugger on their own ship would pay the price for his disappointment.
The prospect of losing Ralph Barclay had engendered mixed feelings; not many of his crew liked him, but they were familiar with his ways. They understood him, his moods, as well as how he liked the ship to be run. A new captain was something to be looked on as a mixed blessing; you never knew what you were going to get, and it was as likely to be a hard horse flogger as a grog-stopping milksop. They had also been informed that Toby Burns was set to shift, and that was seen as an unmitigated blessing, given no one had any time for the little sod. The other area of curiosity, and likewise no mystery, was sitting in the thwarts. That was the captain’s missus; what was the state of the weather there?
Ralph Barclay was too preoccupied to communicate with Emily, and besides, with her nephew within hearing, he was not going to allude to her behaviour at the dinner, though when he did turn his mind to it he was inclined to see it in a positive light; something had to be on such a misery-inducing day. Her conduct had been the opposite of that which he feared; in fact it had been exemplary, giving him good grounds to believe that the worst of the storm in their relationship might be over.
Women, to his mind, were easily capable of being misguided, but they were also fickle, and perhaps, having quite probably seen the error of her previous moods, he might, once they were back aboard their ship, intimate that the normal relations between husband and wife, which had atrophied in the prevailing atmosphere, should recommence. Having drunk a good deal, that thought was allowed to run riot in his mind, leading to a certain amount of shifting of his position to disguise his obvious anticipation.
Once on board, both he and Emily made for the cabin, and Ralph Barclay, quite deliberately, shouted to his steward they were not to be disturbed. Once inside he made a noisy fist of locking the door. It had always been the case that he had been obliged to sleep in one of the quarter cabins while Emily occupied the other; there was not enough space for a double cot, but that did not apply when pleasure was the aim.
‘I feel I must thank you for today, my dear.’
‘I don’t see why.’
‘We have had a bad patch, I know, but you showed me today so much respect that I have good grounds to believe you may have come to your senses.’
‘So you see, in our relationship, no other cause for concern than my foolishness?’
The tone in which that was said was flat, not curt, allowing him to misread it, something he might not have done wholly sober; to his ears it smacked of emollience, and yet he struggled to find the words to move from that to where he desired to be.
‘In other words,’ Emily said, after too long a silence. ‘You have no concerns about your own behaviour?’
‘I have acted as I had to, Mrs Barclay, which I have told you many times, and should you think that I have paid no price, let me tell you
that, today, before we dined, I was informed that an advancement I had been promised had been withdrawn at the instigation of Lord Hood.’
Looking and feeling crestfallen, Ralph Barclay explained the loss of his 74-gunner, bemoaned what it might have meant for them as a married couple, eventually moving on to sound near-enthusiastic about how it might have made them once more the happy pair they had been. He was not conscious that all the time he was speaking his wife said nothing in response. When she did speak, it brought his mood back down with a jolt.
‘I see you are deceiving yourself.’
‘What!’
Her biting tone was maintained in what followed. ‘You correctly observe a breech in our relationship, Captain Barclay; where you are mistaken is in thinking it can be repaired like some torn piece of canvas. But it cannot, sir, for you have broken every standard by which I have been raised, everything I aspired to abide by. You have behaved like a boor…’
‘Do not address me so,’ he barked.
‘I must, sir, for you need to know the depth of my aversion.’
The word hit him like a physical blow. ‘Aversion?’
‘Lies, conspiracy, not only perjuring yourself but inducing others to do so on your behalf, flogging innocents, even falsifying your ship’s papers for all I know. As a wife I am supposed to admire the man to whom I am married. Tell me, sir, what is there to think highly of in such a list?’
‘I am your husband,’ he protested.
‘I never thought, sir,’ she snapped, ‘that I would be sorry to hear you use those words. Now, if you will permit me, I will retire to a place where I have the good fortune to be alone.’
He came for her then, as angry as she had ever seen him; a face suffused with fury, eyes like the devil, his hands reaching out to take her forearms in strong grip. Close up she could see the spittle on his lips, smell the drink, slightly sour on his breath, and she turned her head to avoid his attempt to press his lips against hers.
‘You bitch,’ he snarled. ‘You will obey me.’
Struggling in his arms she cried out. ‘You can flog me, sir, but obey you I never will.’
He was pushing her back through the narrow door into her own little cabin, his voice rising to a near shout. ‘It is an oath you have taken before God, and by God you will meet it.’
Ralph Barclay hit her then, a flat-handed blow across the side of the forehead, enough to slightly stun her. Emily felt the edge of her cot on the back of her knees, and it rose on the ropes that held it to the deck beams as he pushed her harder. Ralph Barclay was on fire with a combination of frustrated desire and deep anger, and the quick look Emily managed to gain made her think him murderous.
‘Leave me be,’ she pleaded, though in a voice that did not lack for force.
‘No, madam, I have indulged you enough in that. You are my wife and you will do your duty by me, even if I have to beat my right out of you with a horsewhip.’
She was on her back, spread across her coat, the weight of her body and his pressure bringing it back to the horizontal, the edges digging painfully into her back and neck, but she was, she knew, defenceless, as she felt his hands clawing at her undergarments. What followed was swift, brutal and unpleasant, she crying, he grunting, until he was done and, with his breeches still undone, he exited the quarter cabin and slammed the door shut behind him, leaving her sobbing.
He was slumped in his captain’s chair, half comatose, when the persistent knocking at the door forced him to respond. Pulling himself upright, Ralph Barclay knew he had fallen asleep, and as he became fully awake he also had a clear recollection of what he had done. That induced mixed feelings, the first that he had asserted his rights, the second unbidden and unwelcome thought being that there would be a price to pay for his violence.
‘So be it,’ he croaked to himself as, swiftly tidied, he turned the key in the brass lock of the cabin door. His clerk, Gherson, was standing before him with a sheaf of papers in his hand, a look of deep concern on his face, which Ralph Barclay suspected to be utterly insincere. ‘What do you want?’
‘Forgive me, sir, for disturbing you,’ Gherson replied, craning slightly to get a surreptitious look over his employer’s shoulder, ‘but I have a matter of urgent concern.’
‘About?’
Gherson whispered then, and jerked his head as if to indicate that he had no desire to be overheard. ‘Supplies, sir.’
With mind still befuddled, Ralph Barclay was momentarily at a loss to know what the man was talking about.
‘From the arsenal, sir,’ Gherson added, in the same low tone. ‘Might I suggest, your cabin is not the best place to discuss it.’
The mind of the man he was whispering to was elsewhere, wondering who had heard what, for the bulkheads that separated the cabin from the rest of the ship were not thick and above his desk was a skylight through which sound travelled easily. How much had the crew heard of what had occurred, and more importantly, what would be their attitude? Not that he cared a jot for any hint of disapproval, but Ralph Barclay knew that command of a king’s ship was an even more fickle matter than the control of a mere woman.
His wife was popular with most of the crew, there being the odd misery who saw the presence of a woman aboard a ship, any woman, as inviting retribution from the Gods of the sea. There were few gentle souls aboard, the Navy did not attract that sort, but no doubt there would be men who, seeing her as a placid creature, would disapprove of the way he had behaved. There and then he resolved to flog the first man that so much as gave him a sideways glance, and the look that produced had Gherson stepping back.
‘I apologise, sir. I would not…the need to act is pressing.’
Emily’s remark about him falsifying his ship’s papers was suddenly uppermost in Ralph Barclay’s mind. How did she know about that? Did she know, or was it just a wild throwaway accusation made in the heat of an argument? Best not to take a chance; if the crew could hear their recent argument through a thin bulkhead he did not want her to hear what he and Gherson were about through hers.
‘Your cabin,’ he growled.
Gherson turned and made his way back to the coop he had been allotted, so small that the sea chest he had acquired to go with his new status as the captain’s clerk was a desk during the day and part of his bed at night; he disliked the idea of a hammock, that being bedding for the nautical commonality. There was a chair, but Ralph Barclay threw himself into that, obliging Gherson, once he had pulled the canvas screen behind him, to stand and deliver.
‘Our contact at the arsenal…’
Ralph Barclay put a finger to his lips, to indicate that Gherson should keep his voice down, so that opening was repeated sotto voce. ‘He told me the place is well guarded, and having sent Shenton to keep watch and engage some of the workers it seems to be very true.’
‘How would he know? My steward is not gifted with French.’
‘We have to believe he managed to communicate, sir, and to confirm what I was being told, otherwise the whole enterprise is doomed.’
‘That’s a fine word, Gherson, enterprise.’
His clerk frowned then, producing that look of pure petulance which Ralph Barclay so disliked. ‘But the men who work at the arsenal are well practised at pilfering.’
‘Never met a dockyard matey who was not that. They are thieves to a man, whichever nation produces them.’
‘Which we hope, sir, will be to our advantage.’
‘Quite.’
‘Powder is the hardest to filch.’
‘Naturally.’
‘But it seems the storeman can be bribed.’
‘Can he, by damn.’
‘And he is not the only one. I think you will be pleased by the nature of the inducement, sir, for I have made it plain that we have no wish to pay a cash price for that which we will receive.’
‘Go on.’
‘There is not a man amongst them who does not worry that Toulon might fall to the Revolution.’ Ralph Barclay did not resp
ond to that, though he did wonder if the workers at the arsenal might have the right of it. ‘They fear for what will happen should the besieging forces take the port.’
‘So they should, Gherson, if they have any idea of what happened in Marseilles.’
‘I have assured them that HMS Brilliant, if she remains here tied to a quay will, in the event of a successful assault, take them and their families on board and evacuate them.’
‘How many are we talking of?’
‘Maybe as many as half a hundred.’
The figure really worried Ralph Barclay, but he did not explode. He was thinking that for such a price he could extract from these people more than that for which he had originally budgeted, given the initial approach to divert stores from the Toulon Arsenal had been firmly based on cash payments.
‘It strikes me, sir,’ Gherson continued, ‘that should they be correct it would be seen as a humanitarian act…’
‘While if they are wrong, Gherson,’ Ralph Barclay hissed, ‘they will be in no position to alter the terms.’
‘Precisely.’
‘You’ve done well, better than I anticipated, but we have to decide who needs to be included in this.’
‘Given the situation, sir, with most of the crew out of the ship during the day, I daresay we can arrange for only those too stupid to care to be left aboard. The early hours of darkness are our time, before they return from those duties.’
Ralph Barclay was nodding slowly, thinking that this Gherson was a slippery but clever bugger, and being so clever he would no doubt make sure that his reward for these proposed peculations would be greater than that which would be admitted. So be it; as long as it was not too outrageous, as long as he was properly taken care of, it mattered little. But how would he know?
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