Flashman and the Emperor

by Robert Brightwell

  “Hold your fire,” I shouted, for the situation was taking a yet more alarming turn. Evidently, no one had searched the officers for weapons, as now more pistols were being produced, all pointed at me, while others drew their swords. Up on the quarterdeck behind me were at least a dozen marines, whose aim was questionable, while ahead were a similar number of Portuguese officers armed with pistols, swords or both. Alone in the middle of these two hostile gatherings was your obedient servant, wondering how a situation could have turned quite so dangerous so quickly.

  The colonel plainly now thought he had the upper hand. “I would rather die than face the dishonour of losing our colours,” he declared. “You will return them to us or you will not leave this deck alive.” It was a good job he could not see the expressions on the faces of his officers behind him. For the glances between them showed that they were perhaps not quite as committed to their flags as their commander.

  I knew I had my pistol in my pocket, but if things got nasty, shots would be fired, many of them aimed at me. My prospects of survival suddenly did not look so good. One false move and the colonel would shoot, and, given he was only yards away, there was a good chance he would hit me. I had suffered a ball through the guts before and I was not risking that again. Maybe it was the memory of that injury or just plain fear that gave me that empty feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  In the old days, I might have tried a running dive into the sea, or perhaps begged for my life. But with sharks on one side or a man who thought he had nothing to lose on the other to deal with, neither option seemed appealing. Glancing forward I could see that Grenfell and the sailors had been penned in by a huge crowd of soldiers. Several had acquired muskets that must have been held back from the earlier disposal. They were all staring aft at me, as were the Portuguese officers and men. There was a silent tension among the crowd of observers as they all waited for something to happen next. It was this taught atmosphere, I realised, that was most likely to kill me. One twitch of a trigger finger from any of those holding weapons and it would be a battle royal. Well, Flashy, I thought, you will just have to gammon your way out of this.

  There was a barrel on the deck nearby. As everyone watched, I wandered over to it, appearing as casual as could be and sat down. One or two weapons were lowered, but the colonel’s gun remained rock steady and pointed in my direction.

  “Did you hear what I said?” he demanded. “Get those colours back or I will kill you.”

  “And what do you think would happen then?” I spoke loudly for I was not really speaking to the colonel, but to the men around him. I affected a casual air and rubbed at a smudge of ink on my finger as I finished my question. The colonel’s eyes narrowed in suspicion but he did not seem inclined to answer. So I responded for him. “If you kill me or any one of our men, Admiral Cochrane over there,” I gestured to the rows of gun ports on the flagship, “will sink this ship.”

  “At least we will have died with honour,” the colonel retorted. “Return those flags or pay the price.” He sounded as implacable as ever, but I noticed more of the weapons behind him being lowered, as others began to consider where this course of action might lead.

  “I lost a regimental colour myself once,” I told him. “It was at Albuera. Polish lancers tore through our ranks, killed or wounded most of us and carried it off. In all the time since, not once have I wished that I had been killed to save that scrap of cloth.”

  “Then you have no honour,” the colonel sneered.

  “Perhaps not,” I admitted. I raised my voice. “The flags will be delivered to His Majesty, the emperor of Brazil. You will be his prisoners and if he wishes, he will return your flags to you with no bloodshed. On the other hand, you can kill me and my men and face the consequences. Admiral Cochrane will sink this ship and leave the survivors at the mercy of the sharks. If you think the flags are worth having your limbs torn off one by one by those pitiless bastards, then I wish you well.”

  All the weapons behind the colonel had been lowered by now and even his own looked shaky. He stared about him and sensed the changing mood. “I don’t believe it,” he insisted. “No civilised commander would leave men in the water for sharks.”

  “Really?” I queried. “Are you not aware of the admiral’s reputation? They don’t call him a ‘Devil’ for nothing.” I glanced around at all of the men watching us and then indicated to the rail. “Come with me, sir, we should talk in private.”

  I led the way to the side of the ship and waited for the colonel to join me. While there I stared down at the surface of the water. As I had hoped, there were still half a dozen of the grey triangular fins gliding in circles, waiting for something more promising than a musket to drop over the side. I was even more glad that I had not tried to jump for safety.

  “I would rather die than live without honour,” the colonel stated as he came to stand beside me. I gestured over the side and he followed my gaze. I watched as the colonel saw the fins too; they seemed to eat into what little resolve he had left. Slowly, he lowered his weapon until it rested on the rail beside him.

  “No one deserves to die in their gaping jaws or be dragged by them into the deep,” I replied. Then I paused to leave his imagination to work on that thought for a moment. “Even if you are willing to face that end, would you really sentence hundreds of your men to the same fate? I remembered that I still held the man’s sword in my hand and now I held it up to him. “Surrender your force and I will speak to my admiral on your behalf. He respects fighting men and he will write to the emperor to recommend that your colours are returned.”

  The colonel looked at the proffered sword. Too late, I wondered if the weapon would remind him of his family’s honour and strengthen his resolve. He turned to study the hundreds of men whose fate, he thought, rested on his next decision. He seemed to want to gaze on every face as he slowly twisted his head to survey the whole deck. I twitched with impatience. The colonel was only a slight man and I wondered if I could heave him bodily over the side if he were to reach the wrong decision. It was only his damn pistol that caused me to hesitate. Then I saw that the colonel, too, was looking at the weapon in his hand and once more at the sword. He seemed finally to reach a decision; he reached out over the water and dropped the pistol in.

  “Well done.” I heaved a silent sigh of relief and then held out his sword to him, which he grasped eagerly. The man would never know how close he had come to splashing into the sea himself.

  Chapter 28

  If we thought we had seen the last of the Gran Para, we were mistaken, for we caught up with her again five days later. In the intervening time we captured the other three troop transports that had been sailing with her. It had taken us two days but we knew the direction they were travelling and so one by one they were taken.

  This time I took no chances, and had the officers searched for weapons as soon as we boarded. I also had my marines load two cannon with grapeshot and turn them to point down the length of the deck. The prospect of a sweeping hail of lead served well to deter any resistance, as did the fact that they knew their commanding officer had already succumbed to our demands. Talking to some of the soldiers, I learnt that most had no great desire to be in Brazil at all and just wanted to go home. It was a feeling that I heartily shared as I watched them hurl their weapons into the deep.

  When we had returned from the Gran Para, young Grenfell had sung my praises about how I had saved them all from certain massacre with my cool reactions to calm a volatile situation. I modestly demurred in the way that people would expect from a decorated war ‘hero’ of several campaigns. But it still seemed to me that I had had little choice. It was either talk my way out of the situation or almost certainly get caught in the crossfire. Cochrane slapped me on the back and announced that I had escaped from more tight spots than any man he knew. “You must have a guardian angel,” he told me and the surrounding crew. “I think we could do anything with you on board and get away with it.”

  Given h
is imagination for trouble, I was appalled at the thought he would see me as a lucky charm. “If you think that,” I told him, “one day you will sail into some impossible situation and look over your shoulder to find me in the jolly boat rowing furiously in the opposite direction!” They all laughed at that but deep down, I was bloody serious. Cochrane’s plans seemed to have no limit to their ambition. I had not liked the way he had pored over the orders that Grenfell had passed him when we had returned from the Gran Para. It was just the information he had been hoping for. Now he had started pacing the deck again, lost in thought, which was never a good sign.

  By chance as we took the last of the four transports, the brig General Allen had hove into view. It had been escorting prizes for the Nitherohy back to the coast and was now trying to re-join the frigate. Cochrane gave its commander new orders; they were to escort the most recently captured transport to a Brazilian-held port and then take despatches all the way to Rio. He wanted to report on progress to date. We had helped secure the liberation of Salvador and by then had disarmed around one thousand five hundred troops, including their artillery. According to Madeira de Melo’s papers that was roughly half of the troops that had left Salvador. Cochrane included those with the despatch too. He wanted both his emperor and the minister of marine affairs to know of the Portuguese plan to reinforce Maranhão.

  “What do we do now?” I asked him as we watched the General Allen sail away.

  “We have little choice but to try to find the main Portuguese fleet again,” said Cochrane, “and then take more of their troopships. With any luck, we can take them all before they reach Maranhão.”

  It took three days to track them down. I admit that I was secretly hoping we would fail. For then, I thought, there would be no alternative but to return to a Brazilian-held port where I might find a ship for home or for us to pursue the merchants to Lisbon, which would at least take me closer to Britain.

  Cochrane had plotted a rough position for the fleet based on their earlier course and speed, but the sea was empty. We patrolled the area in widening circles and then finally, on the third day, a cluster of sails appeared on the horizon. The wind had dropped to a light breeze, but even so we began to gain on the fleet as it seemed slower than it had been before. It was also larger, as its crawling pace had allowed other merchant ships that had been left behind and escaped our earlier ravages, to catch up. Our approach was soon spotted and this time their admiral reorganised his vessels to protect his charges. They quickly formed a line between us and the rest of the fleet. It obscured our view of them, but not enough for Crosbie’s eagle eye.

  “I say,” he called. “That ship with the odd rigging at the back of the flock, she looks familiar.” I stared where he suggested and while I know little about ships, I know enough to recognise a frigate-sized transport without a mizzen mast. In place of the missing timber they had rigged some shorter spar, probably a spare yardarm. They had also fashioned a rudimentary mizzen sail.

  We had only captured one ship that looked like a frigate and I had no doubt who she was. “It’s the bloody Gran Para,” I called indignantly. I should have been angry but I could not help but feel a grudging respect for Madeira de Melo. Despite his humiliation, and having had his soldiers disarmed and his ship dismasted, he was still determined to re-join his forces and continue the campaign.

  “When we take her again,” insisted Crosbie, “I am going to cut down that stump and throw every spare spar they have into the sea.” I just grinned, for I had a feeling that even if we did, the good colonel would just launch the longboat, raise the sail and chase after his men in that.

  As things turned out, our attack had to wait as the wind did not strengthen again. We were forced to shorten sail just to maintain a steady distance of a few miles between us and the fleet. Our advantage lay in speed and surprise, but in such light winds we had neither. Had we tried to attack then we would have crawled towards them at a snail’s pace, giving them ample opportunity to batter us to pieces with their guns before we could bring ours to bear.

  One night came and went and then another as we drifted along in sight of the enemy. Tempers became frayed and men grew irritable as they watched, impotent, as the Portuguese went about their business, boats rowing to and fro between the ships with men and supplies. To give the crew something to do, Cochrane announced that he would carry out a full inspection of the ship, from the masthead to the keel, and he expected everything to be clean and shipshape. The men threw themselves into their task, perhaps suspecting that this might be the last chance to get things ordered before starting a new round of battles.

  I was surprised to see that even my marines now deigned to tidy themselves rather than rely on sailors to swab their decks down. I was with Cochrane when he went through their quarters, which had been reduced in size as there were just thirty left on board. But they did not let me down: jackets were clean and buttoned straight, muskets polished and the men stood smartly to attention. Mallee even threw up a smart salute as he introduced his men. It was no cursory inspection either; Cochrane chose several weapons at random to check that the flints were tightly screwed into their locks. He selected the gun of one marine whose bayonet was not as clean as the others but when he tested its edge with his thumb he handed it back.

  “Christ, I could have shaved with that,” he told the man, who grinned proudly. Cochrane then addressed them all. “Well done, you have turned out well. Sharp uniforms are good but sharp weapons are better.” He turned to another of the marines and asked, “Are you glad that you volunteered to join our navy?”

  It was the big marine, who had led the charge on the magazine. He was a surly brute at the best of times, but now he drew himself up and answered with a note of pride, “Yes sir.”

  “Well you should be,” agreed Cochrane, “for you have done an excellent job and I know things have not been easy for you. But continue as you are and you should reap the rewards. If the government stays true to its word you will receive prize money, a lot of prize money given the ships we have taken and are yet to capture. It will be more money than you have ever had before – do something useful with it.” He grinned and turned to punch me playfully on the shoulder. “Captain Flashman here would spend it on rough liquor and even rougher women.” He was rewarded with a row of grinning faces at this comment, but he continued in a serious tone. “Buy some land with it,” he urged, “a farm or a place to ply a trade. The emperor is serious about making this a great country and it should be a great country for you too.”

  He left them then, his words certainly having started up some passionate debate amongst them. I doubted that they would all be in the queue at the land agents when we discharged them, but the thought of having more money than most had ever seen before had surely excited their interest. I found Cochrane a while later after he had finished his inspection. He was once again pacing the deck, deep in thought. To distract him from whatever he might be plotting now I said, “You made a good impression on the men; they are all busy discussing how they will spend their ill-gotten gains.”

  “Well you have done fine work with them, Thomas. I thought that they were beyond hope when I first saw them.”

  “Some of them have a fierce pride. Mallee, the sergeant, pulled a knife on me at the first training session.”

  “Good God,” gasped Cochrane, astonished. “And you still made him sergeant?”

  “I had startled him and he thought he was going to be killed so he wanted to go down fighting, I think.”

  “Extraordinary.” Cochrane turned to me and asked, “Have you ever wondered what it must be like to be a slave, Thomas?”

  “God no, but it can’t be much worse than life in the army. Soldiers are constantly being ordered about and risking a flogging for disobedience. At least slaves do not have to go into battle against the French and chance getting shot or blown apart by cannon.” I laughed. “Do you know what that cheeky bugger Mallee said when we talked about why he had volunteered to join the th
irty on the ship? He told me that he wanted to change the country. Well, I doubt your emperor is going to change a country this big, so a common soldier or slave stands no chance.”

  “Remember, Spartacus nearly changed the Roman Empire and he was a slave,” chided Cochrane, grinning.

  “Well Mallee is no Spartacus,” I retorted. “Mind you the sight of armed blacks in uniform puts the fear of God into the Portuguese. You should have seen their faces on the first passenger ships we boarded. They seemed to half expect my marines to slaughter the lot of them on the spot.”

  “Really?” queried Cochrane. “Well if they keep our enemy subdued while we board, that will do for me.” He turned away then to resume his silent pacing, lost again in his thoughts.

  By the third day of drifting tantalisingly close to the Portuguese, Crosbie was all for organising a cutting out expedition at night in the boats. Cochrane considered the plan but then ruled it out.

  “Even if they did not see or hear our men approaching,” he pointed out, “they have boats too and would soon overwhelm any boarding party before they could make their escape. No, gentlemen,” he said to the men gathered on the quarterdeck, “there is no alternative but to wait for the return of the wind.”

  As it transpired we did not have to wait much longer, for late that night the moonlight revealed a dark squall moving towards us over the horizon. After days of scarcely any wind at all, the speed of the change was ridiculous. We barely had time to get men aloft to trim and brace the sails before we were deluged with rain. Then we were buffeted by a violent gale so that the ship leaned over as though kicked by a giant horse. In moments, we were racing towards the enemy. Cochrane shouted over the wind howling in the rigging that we would only have one pass. To turn in this tempest would see the sticks torn out of her. He aimed for a frigate that was turning into the wind. It, like us, ran out its guns in anticipation of the encounter. It must have been the shortest sea engagement there has ever been. We were opposite each other for just seconds, both ships rolling in the swell. Guns flashed and roared, but the smoke was blown away almost instantly and the sound of any balls was lost in the wind. At first it did not seem that either ship had taken any damage, but we must have had a ball through our mainsail, for a few moments later it tore in two.