‘Whatever it is, Mr Pearce, it is deserved. My standing orders for the ship were quite specific.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Pearce replied, for Digby spoke the unvarnished truth.
Every officer taking command of a ship added to the Articles of War, which governed the behaviour of sailors, his own personal conditions for the way the ship should be run, and no women had been one of them, read out to the crew on the day Henry Digby took up his duties. It had been promulgated, Pearce suspected, to keep off his new ship the whores of Toulon, numerous in a naval port and growing more so by the day in a besieged town awash with desperate refugees. But it had also been applied at Gibraltar, though mitigated for the frantic by the allowance of some shore leave. From Gibraltar there was nowhere to run; Spain would send a man back if they did not kill him and no one was fool enough to desert to the only other landmass, the North African shore.
‘I would not want you to think, Mr Pearce, that my orders were occasioned by excessive prudery.’
Digby was clearly referring to their earlier conversations on the subject of Lady Hamilton, seeking to point out that whatever his personal inclinations, he was in no way trying to play the preacher of abstinence, but the words had reminded Pearce of a duty he was required to perform.
‘On completion of this unpleasant affair, sir, can I have your permission to go aboard Agamemnon?’
‘For?’
‘Captain Nelson wishes me to take back to Naples his replies to the letters from Sir William and Lady Hamilton.’
‘I should do that after you have seen to some fresh provisions for the ship, Mr Pearce.’
‘Is that not a duty you would require to undertake yourself, sir?’
It was a fair question; lacking a purser on board, the captain was responsible for the victualling of the ship, as well as the mass of bookkeeping that entailed. Given the care required to balance those books it was risky to allow anyone else to take part in either purchase or distribution. When Digby responded, it was with a definite puff of the chest and, for him, a sound enough reason.
‘I would do it if I was not otherwise engaged. Commodore Linzee wishes me to accompany him to meet with the Bey of Tunis, so as I can convey, with some force, Lord Hood’s latest thoughts.’
Pearce thought that was gilding it; Digby had no idea of Hood’s thoughts, earliest or latest. If anyone did it was he, but that would not be a tactful thing to say to a man stuffed with pride at his invitation to take part in the mission.
‘You may wish to know, Mr Pearce,’ Digby added, chest puffing out a bit more, ‘since you wish to go aboard HMS Agamemnon, that the commodore has decided not to include Captain Nelson in his embassy. He feels, no doubt, that he might lack the necessary diplomacy. Now, let us be about this business, for I am not blessed with much in the way of time.’
The ship did run to a drummer, a slip of a boy in a red coat, who reminded Pearce very much of his first sight of Martin Dent, sent into the Pelican by Barclay to spy out the land. The rattle of the lad’s sticks on the skin brought the whole crew up on deck, Neame and Harbin included. A couple of the bosun’s mates rigged the grating to the poop rail, this after another had laid out a piece of canvas to keep pristine the deck planking. Michael, his hands chained together, was fetched from below by the bosun, blinking as he came out of the ’tween decks’ darkness into the morning sunlight. When his eyes adjusted he had the good grace not to look at Pearce, but to concentrate his attention on Henry Digby, who proceeded to tell him against which statutes he had transgressed. Having done that he turned to his premier.
‘Mr Pearce, this man is rated as your servant, and since there is no doubt of his guilt in the matter, it falls to you to list any circumstances which you feel may mitigate the sentence I must apply.’
It was just another part of the ritual; Pearce, though he could not beg for any leniency for the actual offence, insisted that Michael was a good hand, attentive to his duty, a man who would always be at the forefront of any undertaking, regardless of how unpleasant, and certainly in the article of fighting, calling on Digby to recall that he must have seen evidence of this himself. While he was talking, Charlie Taverner, who had got to the front of the assembled crew, turned round to look into the numerous sets of eyes, trying to discern who it was who had left Michael exposed.
He found what he thought would be his culprits, not in their steady stare but in the way many would not return his look. The crew of the ship had been made up of drafts from several vessels for that trip to Biscay and back but the time that voyage took, and the hazards faced, should have moulded them into a bunch at ease with each other; that it had not done so entirely was obvious by what was now taking place.
‘Well, O’Hagan, you have heard the charge against you, and the fulsome praise of Mr Pearce. Do you have anything to say in your own defence?’ Michael just shook his large square head, while keeping his jaw stiff. ‘Then I have no option but to pay you out with a dozen of the cat. Bosun, seize him up.’
The bosun was no fool; the captain might use such an expression but he was not about to make an enemy of a bruiser like Michael for no purpose. The Irishman was not so much seized up as led to the grating, his hands unlocked and his shirt removed without the least hint of aggression. Recalling his own experience, John Pearce wondered if Michael was to be likewise treated, and he looked hard at the cat as it was removed from the red baize bag to see of what it was made.
The main rope looked solid enough, and there was no hint of softness in the tails. The truth that it was a proper instrument of punishment came when the bosun, spreading his feet to get the right balance, struck the first blow, the sound of it thwacking against the bare flesh making him start, and Digby too. A great red weal appeared immediately, and that was added to by another with the second blow, though it was clear by the way the man administering the lash adjusted his footing, he was taking care not to strike on flesh already damaged.
No sound came from Michael, nothing more than a stiffening of those wide shoulders. Unable to see his face, Pearce had no idea if that was registering pain, or how hard his friend was biting on the leather strap in his mouth. But he did see, when he turned, by the looks on their faces, there was anger in the crew, though they were careful not to direct it in a place where an officer could follow their gaze. That told him the culprits who had left him to be discovered would suffer, and not at the hands of Michael O’Hagan.
It was after the sixth blow that Digby suddenly stepped forward, his hand held out. ‘Belay, that will be enough.’
The bosun, in the act of preparing to swing, looked at his captain, perplexed, perhaps noticing how pale was the man’s face.
‘I am minded to show mercy,’ Digby added, which brought a murmur of assent from the crew, ‘and freely admit that, given the offence, my original sentence was too harsh. Take him down and see to his back.’ As soon as Michael was untied he pushed away those set to support him, turned to face the crew, and gave them his widest smile, only nodding as Digby added, ‘I hope this will learn you your lesson, fellow. I do not wish to see you at the grating again.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ Pearce said softly.
Digby’s reply was near a whisper. ‘I did it for my own sake, Mr Pearce, not for yours.’ There was a near shake of the body as he pulled himself together, and his tone became loud and brisk. ‘You will find a list of things we might purchase, along with the means to do so, on my table. Now be so good as to call up my boat. You may drop me at the flag and then make your way ashore’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
John Pearce had found himself, many times, in thick crowds, but never one as dense as now and, even with a couple of trusty hands to ensure he was not robbed, he felt insecure and kept a firm hand on his purse as well as the hilt of his sword. The quayside had been thick with humanity, but the markets were worse by far, and added to that were the cries of the vendors and the protests of their customers at the prices being quoted. Even now, when it would be cold an
d wet at home, it was hot here, and he had a momentary wish that he could exchange his uniform for the loose garments favoured by the locals.
His one advantage lay in his height; he could see over the heads of the crowd and pick those stalls he wished to call on. His major disadvantage was in the lack of the language – though he suspected the locals knew more than they let on – which became a handicap all the greater when it came to arguing about price. The whole area, a series of narrow alleys in between buildings that seemed to be constructed of mud, was lined with cave-like emporiums and street stalls covered with awnings to keep out the sun.
They had a series of ever changing smells the like of which he had never experienced: the high odour of too ripe fruit – some of which on seeing them he could not name – the heady smell of spices, the aroma of meat and fish being cooked on charcoal burners, the sharp tang of lemons, the whiff of the hookah pipes and the scented tobacco they contained, the whole overlaid with the reek of mangy dogs, ordure, human sweat and the high-pitched cries of the vendors.
Bargaining was lengthy and complex, made more so by endless misunderstandings, which made him wish he had availed himself of whoever it was who represented British vessels calling at Tunis. He had no desire to convey what he purchased to the boat himself, and that involved alterations to what he had agreed, which included endless arm waving and shouting, but after two hours of haggling, exhausted by the effort, he was back on the quayside, ready to call in the cutter when his goods arrived, and he had found a space where he could rest his weary legs on a stone bollard.
Along the quay there were dozens of vessels loading and unloading – Tunis being a great trading port – and looking at the fellows doing the carting of the cargoes he had little doubt, given their emaciated appearance and air of misery, that they were slaves. After a while, with a certain degree of guilt, he stood up and insisted that his two escorting hands, in turns, take the weight off their feet, an offer which was greeted with ill-disguised surprise. That led Pearce to think of his Pelicans who, away from authority, would not have been shy to tell him they needed rest as much as he, but he had left Charlie and Rufus behind – Michael not being an option – so as to allay some of the feelings of the crew regarding favouritism.
He began to pace up and down, in an increasing number of steps, looking at the great gate in the city wall, with the teeth of a portcullis showing at the top, wondering how long it would take for his purchases to arrive. That brought him close to a moving line of dust-coated creatures, bent when they were carrying sacks towards and up a gangplank, stumbling when they returned for their next load. An overseer with a whip stood to one side, his rasping voice calling for effort, his hand twitching to tell his charges that he had a whip and he would use it.
Pearce stopped to watch, wondering what the anti-slavery campaigners of the British Isles would make of such a sight. Vexed by the Atlantic trade, this would displease them just as much, for here was every race represented including Nubians. Was it not on a journey to Egypt that William Wilberforce was first converted to the cause of the Testonites? Was it such a sight as John Pearce was witnessing now that persuaded him of the evils of human bondage?
He only became aware that one of the overworked creatures had stopped and was staring at him because the weary workers following and not looking bumped into him, that bringing a shout from the overseer. Pearce found himself looking into a heavily bearded face, bronzed where the sun had not actually burnt off the skin, and a pair of bird-like brown eyes that seemed familiar. It was in the act of trying to place the memory they triggered that the fellow spoke his name.
‘Pearce!’ That made him look harder, and the voice hissed again. ‘It’s Ben.’
The overseer was on his way, bustling through the line, furious of face, hand held out to the side with his whip ready to use. It was instinct rather than knowledge that made Pearce interpose himself between the man and the intended victim, as he tried to make sense of the words he had just heard, so it was with a feeling of deep confusion he replied.
‘Ben?’
‘Walker, you recall me, John Pearce.’
The hand of the overseer on his shoulder stopped his intended reply, the man seeking to spin him out of the way, an act which caused Pearce to do two things: resist and call forward his two escorting sailors. Turning to face the overseer, who now had his whip hand raised, his mind reeling with a dozen inchoate thoughts, Pearce pushed him hard, then had to do so again and with more force when the man did not yield. The overseer stepped back and raised his whip with the clear intention of using it, so Pearce whipped out his sword, which gave the fellow pause enough for his two tars to get alongside him. With the fully extended tip pointing at his throat, the overseer stepped well back, emitting a series of loud shouts, to whom, Pearce had no idea.
‘Keep this bastard away from me,’ he growled, handing the blade to one of his men. Then he turned back to the bent-over creature who had addressed him, seeing a body now racked with sobs. Could this really be Ben Walker, another one-time Pelican, a man who had been pressed by Ralph Barclay on the same night as he?
‘I was told you were dead, Ben.’
What came out in reply lacked coherence, being more a set of disjointed statements. ‘Went overboard…floated on a hatch cover…was picked up by the galley we was fighting…God is payin’ me back for my sins.’
There was no time to wonder what sins Ben referred to, even if it had always intrigued Pearce, he being the only one of the men he had messed with aboard Barclay’s frigate who would not tell a soul why he had taken refuge in the Liberties. Raising his eyes, he saw that the overseer’s shouting had brought most of the people on the quayside to a standstill, and all were staring in his direction. The words that followed were instinctive, and took no cognisance of the how.
‘We must get you out of this, Ben.’
‘Armed men comin’, your honour,’ said one of his sailors, ‘an’ they don’t look in a mood to parley.’
‘Keep an eye on this man,’ Pearce barked.
Taking back his sword, he turned towards the walls of the city, and the arched gate from which a party of musket-bearing soldiers had just emerged, jogging along, the crowd parting before them like the Red Sea. Quickly he sheathed the weapon, reckoning it to be useless against muskets, and examined those approaching, not impressed by their slovenly excuses for uniforms: less than clean garments and turbans which had at one time all been the same colour, but were in various stages of fading now. The man leading them had a fine set of moustaches, on a near-black skinned face, and an expression, aided by his Levantine nose, which boded ill.
‘Lieutenant Pearce of His Britannic Majesty’s Navy,’ he yelled, in a voice so loud it rebounded off the city walls.
The level of his shout, and the confident way he both emitted it and stood four-square to greet these fellows, made the moustached leader slow his pace, and Pearce was encouraged by the look of confusion in the man’s eyes. The overseer was shouting in his own tongue, the whip waving in anger, that before he recalled his true duty and began to belabour his other charges to get back to their tasks. By the time he had achieved that, Pearce found himself face to face with that set of moustaches and penetrating black eyes, while the two men with him had got Ben Walker between them, then covered his back from the rest of the armed party, which now had them surrounded.
Pearce, keeping his hand on his sword, tried a bit of French on the chief, to no avail, and the man had no English either. What he did have was a high-pitched voice, a definite grievance, eyes that flashed with ire, and an incomprehensible tongue. Gently Pearce brought Ben alongside him and tried, with gestures and single words, to explain.
‘British…sailors…no slave.’ He pointed out to where HMS Alcide lay, then up at the flag, which had on it the device of his country, his finger jabbing between it and the hunched figure he was simultaneously trying to console.
The musket twitched, another stream of unknown words followed, acco
mpanied by furious shaking of the head, and all the while the overseer added his own complaints to the exchange, which left Pearce at a stand. Given a file of marines and their muskets he would have taken this lot on and marched Ben down to the ship’s boat. But he lacked that, and worse, he was surrounded and outnumbered, and quite sure he had no rights in the matter that would make any sense to those with whom he was arguing.
As well as that, he could see the leader of the armed party was growing less patient and more hysterical in his pronouncements as time went by, less willing to even stop talking and try to make sense of John Pearce’s gestures. He had two men and one sword to set against them, and that would not do, although he did wonder if these locals would use their weapons with several British warships so close by. The trouble was, they were not close enough by – they were well out of earshot – and it was with great reluctance that he bent down and whispered to Ben.
‘I must give you back to them now, Ben, for I cannot make them understand, but I will get you out of this. When the commodore hears they are holding a British tar he will threaten to blow the place apart unless they release you.’
‘They won’t give me up, Pearce,’ Ben replied huskily, ‘it’s not their way.’
‘I’ll make it their way.’
Ben’s bird-like eyes fixed on his face, looking for reassurance. There was so much Pearce wanted to say and no time to say it, and with a feeling of failure he gently pushed Ben forward until he stumbled out of his reach. Seeing the overseer twitch his whip, Pearce yelled loud enough to make the moustaches jump back and lower his musket, but he raised it again when he realised the shout was aimed at the overseer, the other threat to that same target the half of the sword which had scraped out of its scabbard.
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