The Admirals' Game

by David Donachie

  ‘You have your letters?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Good, good,’ Digby responded, heading for the gangway. ‘Mr Harbin, you have the deck.’

  The two officers clambered down into a cutter in which the boat crew had been dandified, told to put on fresh checked shirts that they would have normally kept for a run ashore, all with the same red neckerchiefs and clean ducks.

  ‘Now row steady, lads,’ Digby called. ‘Ply even, the good name of the ship rests on a smooth crossing.’

  Looking at Digby, John Pearce felt he was gifted with a peek at the future man; full of pomp and pride, though not so much as to be a booby, happy in his rank and delighted at the invite. Digby’s face flushed with pleasure as, approaching the side of the third rate, the coxswain called out ‘Faron’ in a loud bellow and he looked at Pearce with a piercing glare, as if to say, ‘Damn your Hamiltons, this is true honour’. That colour deepened as he was piped aboard with all the ceremony due a ship’s captain, where there was a line of marines to elevate Digby’s mood further, though the job of actually receiving him had been allotted to the premier.

  ‘Captain Hallowell asks that you join him in his cabin for an early refreshment.’

  ‘Delighted,’ Digby cried, and he and Pearce followed the fellow along the maindeck and up the companionway, his shoulders square and his head held high. Salutes from the marine sentry Digby greeted with a jaunty hand near his hat, then there was a servant waiting to take that from both officers, until finally they were shown in to the sanctum of the main cabin.

  ‘Gentleman,’ the captain cried upon them entering, and once Digby had done the honours, John Pearce found himself shaking the hand of an officer nearly as tall as Michael O’Hagan, one who could not give of his full height for the overhead deck beams. He also had a voice to match his stature. ‘Ben Hallowell, at your service.’

  Colonial, thought Pearce, hearing the twang of the Americas in the voice.

  ‘Steward, a drink for our guests,’ Hallowell cried again, his voice booming in a face that was a picture of rubicund good cheer. ‘You need a few drams, sir, to face a dinner with a commodore.’

  In the background they could hear the whistles and stamping of another arrival, and Hallowell cried with mock alarm, ‘Damn me, I have missed Nelson coming on board. Still,’ he added with another beaming smile, ‘there was never a fellow less likely to take offence.’

  Within half a minute Nelson was in the cabin, his small hand and frame dwarfed by that of Hallowell. He took the thump on the back well, for it was delivered with force, his smile alone fading slightly to register the effect.

  ‘For all love, Ben, belay that,’ he moaned, with a somewhat nasal tone in his voice, muffled even more by the appearance and employment of a large handkerchief. ‘I have only one small skeleton to be going on with, and enough diseases contained in it to fill yours.’

  ‘Captain Digby, allow me to present to you Captain Horatio Nelson, who thinks himself prey to every malaise of mankind. He is, of course, in rude good health.’

  ‘If only it were so, Ben,’ Nelson responded, with a snuffle and a rub, before acknowledging Digby. In being introduced to John Pearce the little captain peered hard at him. ‘I have seen you before, Lieutenant, I am sure.’

  ‘I think not, sir,’ Pearce replied.

  He was unwilling to admit that the man was right; Pearce had met Nelson briefly in the English Channel when the captain came aboard the merchantman on which he and his companions were going north, to what they thought was freedom instead of a second impressement. Nelson was on his way south to the join the fleet at Lisbon.

  ‘No, I never forget a face, it will come to me.’

  ‘You may have heard of Lieutenant Pearce, sir,’ said Digby, ‘rather than met him. He was the fellow elevated by His Majesty for the action with Centurion.’

  ‘Are you, by God? Then I want you next to me at dinner, sir, so you can tell me all about it.’

  Digby was so busy being pleased with that response, he failed to see the glare he got from his premier.

  Much as he felt he had been grilled like some morsel of food on a hot plate, Pearce could not find it in him to take offence at Nelson. There was an almost childlike innocence to his enthusiasm, and it was telling that all the while Pearce was relating, with the necessary degree of modesty, how he and the crew of HMS Griffin had helped a 50-gun man-o’-war to best a French 74, the handkerchief which he was wont to employ had stayed in his pocket and no hint was forthcoming of any malaise.

  Of course, the whole table had listened to his tale, which had Digby, drinking with a little more gusto than the rest, thumping the board and crying, ‘Hear him, hear him!’

  When Pearce finished, his superior addressed his neighbour. ‘My compliments to you, Captain Nelson, you have a rare gift for getting disclosure. I have sailed with Mr Pearce for more’n two months, and that is the first time he has told the tale whole.’

  Linzee, by far the least garrulous soul at the table, gave Pearce a quizzical look, so direct it demanded a response.

  ‘As I have already said, gentlemen, we had the good fortune to be in the right place at the right time, and that must be laid at the door of the man who commanded the vessel. As well as that, I have already said how the senior members of the crew aided me in making the necessary decisions. If honour is due, then it is theirs by right.’

  Pearce was tempted to mention Latimer by name, who had been the most forthcoming in that role, but he feared to do so unless it led him into an assertion that he held dear: the notion that the Navy was often officered by fools and served by men of the lower deck who were frequently wiser by far.

  ‘I, for one, am not surprised, Mr Pearce. To my mind there is no nobler creature than those tars who serve on His Majesty’s ships and vessels.’

  Of all Linzee’s guests, Nelson seemed most affected by the wine he was drinking, and that level of hyperbole only served to underline it; Pearce reckoned him as a man with a light head, which generally led to strong sentiments, if not accurate expression.

  ‘I cannot give you nobility, Horry,’ boomed Hallowell, voicing the very thought Pearce was harbouring. ‘I will give you application and courage, but to assert that the men who serve in our vessels are noble is pure rot.’

  Nelson beamed, and so eager was he to get in his sally that he spoke quickly enough to slur slightly. ‘I bow to you in that, Ben, and say, without peradventure, you are a living example of the proposition.’

  ‘Which I am bound to second,’ said Linzee, with a wan smile, ‘just as I add my compliments to you, Mr Pearce, on your success.’

  That was a rare statement from someone so elevated, indeed from any naval officer. Most, he felt, when free from the prejudice of actual dislike, tended to condescend to him for merely being lucky, men who struggled to conceal their jealousy, and to that was added the sheer bitterness of anyone of high rank that their king had overturned the custom and practice of the service. Linzee’s brother-in-law certainly did not share the sentiment, but it would not be wise to say so.

  The commodore seemed a man of serious mien – with a slightly doleful countenance, which suggested he felt the weight of his responsibilities. While enjoying the banter between his two post captains, he had been restrained in his response, and was, as Pearce saw and Digby did not, somewhat pained by the outré outbursts of the latter. If Digby was trying to impress him, he was going the wrong way about it.

  Looking at his host as the conversation moved on to something they called the Mortella Tower, Pearce wondered if he, too, felt he was subject to some of the same brickbats. Being related to the c-in-c would mean that no one would grant him the slightest degree of competence to justify his blue pennant; many would assert that such a promotion would come from his being related to Hood. Pearce could not help conjuring up, when he thought of naval officers in the mass, an image of bickering fishwives, and it was while he was ruminating on that he was caught out by a questi
on from Linzee.

  ‘I believe, Mr Pearce, you sailed round Corsica prior to my attempt to subdue the forces on the Northern Cape. Did you observe any such towers? I believe there is more than one of similar design.’

  ‘Forgive me, sir, I…’

  ‘Was in cloud cuckoo land,’ hooted Nelson, blue eyes alight, in a way which demonstrated quite clearly he was inebriated.

  ‘If you had seen one, sir,’ Linzee added, with a mere flicker of a frown at Nelson, ‘you would know of what I speak. I am certain if you had attacked one you would share the view that they are formidable.’

  ‘Damned hard to damage with round shot,’ added Hallowell, ‘being circular in their construction. Shot skims off if it don’t hit dead true, and the damn places are built so well even a ball smack on the face of the stonework does little damage. Cost us sixty men wounded and dead when we tried to subdue it.’

  Linzee’s gloomy face suddenly became animated by a degree of fury. ‘Which we would have succeeded in doing had the Corsicans kept their part of the bargain. That tower needed to be attacked from land at the same time as we engaged the guns from seaward, but where in Creation was the so-called Corsican Army? That damned old flanneler Paoli, in his letters, promised much and delivered absolutely nothing, leaving us exposed.’

  ‘Pasquale Paoli?’ Pearce asked.

  ‘That’s him.’

  Linzee had responded with such venom that Pearce declined to say what had been on his lips, to mention that he knew a bit about Paoli. He had heard the story of the hero of the Corsican resistance to French rule by his father’s friend, James Boswell, the biographer of Doctor Johnson. He had only been a child, but the Laird of Auchinleck had made Paoli sound admirable; noble of countenance and modest in his manner and thanks to Boswell’s writings, lionised by London society. He was clearly not seen in that light at this board so it was again fortunate that the talk had moved on, and his opinion was not sought. Hallowell was describing in more detail the assault on the Mortella Tower, until with an almost abrupt gesture Linzee brought matters round to the problem he presently faced: how to deal with that ‘damned rogue’, the Bey of Tunis.

  Linzee had tried to get the Bey to impound the French vessels, both warships and merchantmen, something the ruler of Tunis was reluctant to do, for the very good reason that such an action would make him an enemy of France. Thinking on it as the conversation bounced back and forth, listening to the points made, and being less partisan than his fellow diners, Pearce could understand what the fellow was thinking.

  The British he would see as a temporary presence in this part of the world; the French, in contrast, were permanent northern neighbours, distant only by a few days sailing. At present Britannia was struggling to contain the Revolution; if they failed, retribution would fall on anyone who aided them. At the same time the British were presently close by with a powerful fleet, one which, if so employed, could make life very difficult for the lord of a trading port; hence his preference for neutrality.

  ‘The fellow’s no more than a successful Cretan pirate,’ Linzee said, loudly, ‘but he has enough influence at Constantinople to get and keep his office.’

  ‘You know my view, sir,’ said Nelson, who now became animated enough to seemingly overcome his inebriation. ‘We should act with decision.’

  ‘Which, Captain Nelson, will surely add to our enemies at a time when we are seeking allies.’

  The formality of that response, which was a hint to Nelson that the view he had just expounded was unwelcome, went right over the man’s head.

  ‘The Bey, sir, cannot be said to be our friend.’

  ‘Lord Hood would wish, if he cannot be that, for him to be kept from becoming an ally of France.’

  ‘Even if they cut off the king’s head?’

  ‘You were present, Captain Nelson, when the Bey reminded us that we had at one time done the same.’

  ‘You know I esteem our Lord Hood, but he is not here, sir. We are, and I believe bold action will carry the day. We should board and take those French frigates, secure the Smyrna convoy as prizes and bribe the Bey with half the profits from the sale of what they are carrying.’

  ‘I have said it before, Captain Nelson, that my orders are quite specific, and they have been reinforced by the dispatches brought to me by Captain Digby. The problem is not simply here. Attack the ships in the bay and we may well set the whole Mussulman world of the Mediterranean against us. Constantinople will not take kindly to us being high-handed. Might I remind you we are talking of the very people who, in the religious connection, hold the land within twelve miles of Gibraltar.’

  ‘But—’

  Nelson got no further, as Linzee cut him off with the words, ‘I think I have made the position clear, Captain.’

  Nelson actually produced a pout that took years off him, making him, with his unlined skin and blond, untidy hair, look quite youthful.

  ‘I defer to you, sir. I know the decision is not an easy one.’

  ‘Thank you, Captain,’ Linzee replied, probably well aware that the words did not match the feelings, which was very evident in Nelson’s expression. ‘Whatever, we must go ashore again on the morrow, and see if we can get him to change his mind.’

  Pearce had quite deliberately kept the letters until he could get Nelson on his own; it was no business of anyone else if he was communicating with the Hamiltons. He might be open about the connection, but it was his prerogative to be discreet if he wished.

  ‘Why, thank you, Mr Pearce.’ Nelson took the letters and caressed the seals, very obviously pleased. ‘You met the ambassador?’

  ‘I did, sir, a most elegant gentleman.’

  ‘Oh, he’s more than that, Mr Pearce. The fellow has a sharp brain, and that goes double for Lady Hamilton.’

  There was a look in the little captain’s eye then, a gleam, that tempted Pearce to say more. With him still feeling the effects of the wine he had consumed he might reveal that his admiration for the lady extended to more than her brain. Just as he decided against it, the matter being none of his concern, Nelson went on.

  ‘You have no idea how kind she was to my stepson, Josiah. The lad knows nothing of the world, Mr Pearce, locked away as he has been, when not at school, in Norfolk. To a young man who sees a trip to the King’s Lynn feast or the Aylsham Assembly as exciting, I fear the city of Naples overwhelmed him somewhat, but Lady Hamilton put him at his ease.’

  Pearce could not resist the question. ‘And how old is your stepson, sir?’

  ‘Fourteen years,’ Nelson replied.

  A reply which had John Pearce cursing himself for the fact that his mind was working in the same manner as that for which he had earlier castigated Henry Digby.

  ‘Might I ask you, sir, your views on flogging?’

  Nelson blinked but that soon changed to a pensive look. ‘I subscribe to the saying, Mr Pearce, that it makes a good man bad, and a bad man even worse, but I cannot see how we can run a ship without the use of it. Personally, I seek to avoid the use of the cat, but I have had many occasions when it was so warranted as to leave me no option. Why do you ask?’

  ‘We have one to perform on board HMS Faron, and it is to be given to a man I personally esteem.’

  That earned him a pat on the back, one of some sympathy, as Nelson replied, holding up the letters, ‘With the rank goes the duty.’

  When Pearce nodded at that, his sadness plain, Nelson added, ‘I would be obliged if you would visit me to take back with you my replies. I believe you are to return to Naples.’

  ‘I am, sir.’

  ‘Then I envy you.’ As John Pearce turned to leave, his action must have triggered a recollection in Nelson’s mind, for he gave a little cry. ‘I have it. I see you now, not in the uniform you are wearing but in a seaman’s ducks. In the English Channel was it not?’

  There was little choice but to acknowledge the truth.

  ‘I told you, sir, I never forget a face.’

  ‘Then, sir, you may w
ell be interested to know how I came to be there.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The ritual of a flogging was a time-honoured affair, yet the level of brutality attendant upon that was a matter of how the captain ran his ship. It could be rendered bloody and harsh, the way favoured by the likes of Ralph Barclay, or it could be made to be an act indulged more in sorrow than in anger. Looking at Digby, prior to Michael O’Hagan being brought up on deck, Pearce could see him as a man less assured than he had been the previous evening. Then, bolstered with wine and his seat at the commodore’s table, he had been full of confidence, with nary a thought to this, the other part of his responsibilities.

  Now that the time had come to actually proceed with the punishment, he had a distinct pallor around the gills, one which hinted to Pearce that his superior was a novice when it came to something of this nature. In their month long voyage to La Rochelle and back, the cat had never appeared, and though he knew Digby had witnessed his own flogging on board HMS Brilliant, it was not ordered or overseen by him. Given that thought, and in revenge for having to explain his supposed heroics, Pearce could not help a little dig.

  ‘I am unsure of the procedures, sir. I hope you will advise me if I seem to be going astray.’

  ‘What?’

  Caught off guard, trapped in his own thoughts, Digby replied with a satisfying degree of fluster, and it took him a few seconds to digest what Pearce had said. Then he produced words that made his premier feel like a scrub for baiting him.

  ‘I will not make a pretence of enjoying this, Mr Pearce, but I fear it must be done. Fail to act and the effect on the crew could be ruinous.’

  ‘So it is, as the old sage, Voltaire, said in his book Candide: “pour encourager les autres”.’

  Digby actually blanched at that. Voltaire had used that expression thirty-five years previously to describe the judicial murder, the execution by firing squad, on his own quarterdeck, of Admiral Byng. The act, as well as the words, had resonated through the service, and was reckoned to have had a telling effect on the conduct of naval officers ever since: no one wanted such a disgrace or anything like that as a fate; better to die in action, however ill-judged, than face such an end.