His crew respected him, and not just because he had the reputation as a man willing to employ the cat. More than half were long-in-the-tooth, deep-water sailors, and had served with hard-horse captains before; they had learnt either through their own experience or the misfortune of others what was punishable and what was not. And even if they had not shared a hull with him before they knew of Ralph Barclay’s character – that he saw a direct stare as insolence, an untidily rolled hammock, a misplaced bucket or swab, even a rope not coiled neat as intolerable. He liked his deck planking snow white, his guns and the balls that lay behind them an even, rust-free black, and he had an eagle eye for anything that transgressed those high standards. And he had made it plain in his standing orders that, when it came to sailing, he wanted Brilliant to be a crack frigate, one that any Admiral would pick out by habit to perform the tasks that brought a naval officer wealth and glory.
Not that he had been gifted with subordinates who would make that easy. In the article of officers, who now stood in a line before him, HMS Brilliant was not a happy ship. Though careful to observe the proper forms, he disliked the First Lieutenant Hood had foisted on him, and had little regard for his second and third for the same reason. It was not vanity that made him want his own appointees around him. It was an axiom of the service that lieutenants should have a loyalty to their captain that transcended mere proximity of rank – indeed they should depend on him and be willing to sacrifice their own interests to his so that, in turn, he could repay such fidelity by making heartfelt recommendations for their advancement.
That was how he had stood in regard to his patron Admiral Rodney – the death of that man had put an obvious check on Ralph Barclay’s career. There was nothing worse than being the client of a deceased flag officer. Years of allegiance that should have paid off with consideration went into the death casket with the cadaver. Had Rodney still been alive he would have had an active command, and being gifted that from the Admiralty would have presented them with a list of captains he wanted in his fleet – Ralph Barclay flattered himself that he would have been one of those. In turn he would have got a better ship, a bigger frigate or even a ship-of-the-line, with the ability to pick his own inferior officers, some of them lieutenants who had been with him as captains servants or midshipmen since before they were breeched. Like he had looked to Rodney, they had looked to him to get them a place, and Ralph Barclay had endured more than one painful interview in which, thanks to the intransigence of Sam Hood, he had been obliged to disappoint his followers.
The lesser officers he could do nothing about. No naval captain chose his Purser, Boatswain, Carpenter or Cook – they served on board a ship to which they were permanently attached by warrant. His crew he would come to know in time, and he expected they would fear to displease him, because he had and was proud of his reputation as a strict disciplinarian, something that would be known by any old Navy men. The rest, landsmen pressed or volunteers, would learn soon enough the boundaries of naval discipline as applied by their captain.
‘Mr Roscoe.’
‘Sir,’ replied the First Lieutenant, stepping forward. Roscoe had a lopsided countenance, one half seeming, with a lazy eye and collapsed cheek, to have no muscles, and that affected his speaking voice. He also had a drooping lip, which often made a very ordinary look seem amused. Yet a person had only to glance at the sound half of his face to see that there was a man to whom humour appeared alien.
‘I require an explanation as to why we have yet to complete our stores?’
‘I plead the shortage of hands, sir, and the boats, barring one, were with you.’
‘It did not occur to you to request hands and boats from another ship, a guard ship perhaps or one that has the luxury of time?’
What could Roscoe say? That Davidge Gould had got to the guard ships before him, and no commander of a fighting vessel in his right mind – the only option left – would lend men to someone like Ralph Barclay, captaining a ship short on its own complement and with orders to weigh. So he took refuge in saying nothing.
‘Keep an eye out for our boats coming down river with the hands I have recruited.’ Barclay paused, thinking he might actually have to weigh before they got here, then added, ‘Some twenty in number, Mr Roscoe.’
‘Sir.’
‘I am surprised, sir, that you can take such a statement in so calm a manner,’ He looked to include the second lieutenant, a grey-haired, slow speaking Dorset man called Thrale, with the face of a kindly uncle, a nonentity; a touch deaf, timid and lacking in confidence. He thought of that Admiralty waiting room with the crowd of lieutenants begging for a ship. How had such a man so impressed Sam Hood as to get himself a place on this one? ‘You too Mr Thrale, given your own failures in that department.’
It was these men he had sent ashore, when first commissioned to command this frigate, with his posters and his money, for which he had been forced to pawn his possessions, and the way they had let him down rankled every time he looked at them. Neither Roscoe nor Thrale responded. Nor did Roscoe add the obligatory, ‘Aye, aye, sir.’
Ralph Barclay knew that his Premier had deliberately left out the acknowledgement that was his due, which made him growl as he looked at the mass of stores piled in various places, and the untidy ropes that littered the deck planking. A goat was wandering about as it pleased, and the lowing of the beef cattle in the waist grated as much as the clucking of the hens in the coop behind the wheel. His Standing Orders, detailed instructions for the running of the ship, written so that all his subordinates would have no doubt as to how he wished things done, had been very particular about that – no ship could ever be brought to a high standard of cleanliness if the most visible part of it was untidy.
‘And this deck, Mr Roscoe! No doubt you will tell me it was holystoned this very morning but I cannot say it is evident.’
‘If I may be allowed to go about my duties…’
‘You had better, Mr Roscoe,’ Barclay interrupted, ‘for I shall be back on deck within the hour, and I expect to find it spotless and clear of obstructions. I will also then wish to know that I can, without excuse, weigh anchor according to my instructions.’
He heard Roscoe bark at Thrale as he walked away, the Premier exercising his right to pass abuse down the chain of command. He did not see the malevolent looks aimed at his back, from officers and men alike, who had been toiling like Trojans since before first light, and felt they had the right to see that acknowledged. Not that it would have affected him if he had; ship’s captains required respect, not affection.
After what Ralph Barclay had endured that morning, the relief of making his own cabin was palpable. His steward, Shenton, was there to take his hat, as well as the redeemed silver buckles, which could now go back on his shoes to replace the pinchbeck he had been forced to substitute. His best uniform coat was exchanged for a workaday affair, no longer the deep blue of a twenty-guinea dress outfit, but faded by sun, wind and weather to a pale imitation of what it had once been; much stitched and with leather patches on the elbows where the material had been worn away. All the officers on deck, who had been obliged to put on their best uniforms for the ceremony of his coming aboard, would be doing likewise, getting back into working clothes to complete the tasks that lay ahead.
The ship’s captain had work of his own – his desk was a mass of papers that could not wait. This was the lot of a commanding officer and it could not be gainsaid nor ignored. He had to write a report on the state of his ship, timbers, hull and masts, and the stores within her, as well as those coming aboard, of the quantity and grade of powder and the amount of shot in the lockers. Water, barrels of salted pork, beef and dried peas, what had been consumed and what was left, as well as the wood he needed to fire the cook’s coppers so that his men could eat. There was rum to account for and the small beer the hands drank in lieu of fresh water. The amount of canvas he had in his sail locker and what gauge it was, as well as what he possessed in the way of spare yards. To
this must be appended lists of everything from nails to turpentine, to cables and spare anchors. He also had to include a list of the numbers and ratings of his crew for the purposes of pay, and the whole thing would have to be sent in to the Commodore before the noon gun. His new volunteers would go on that list, rated as landsmen.
As he wrote some of the lists of stores he was aware that they related to what he had taken aboard in the month, including this day, and what he had used, and took no account of what might have been abused or stolen in the meantime, or eaten by the rats that infested the holds. At times it seemed as though every man aboard his ship was a thief – and that took no account of the dockyard scullies, villains to a man – so great was the discrepancy between what HMS Brilliant should possess and what could be hauled out and counted. And the corollary to that was that every merchant captain and fisherman in the reaches of the Thames was a willing purchaser of purloined naval stores, and not just his. He suspected the carpenter of selling timber and nails, the caulker of trading pitch, his boatswain of filching lengths of cable and his gunner of degrading the quality of his powder. That the purser was dishonest went without saying, Ralph Barclay having never met an honest one.
The marine sentry knocked and opened the door on his command to admit Midshipman Burns, a slip of a boy of thirteen who was a relation to his wife. Burns was wearing, over some working nankeen trousers, a uniform coat far too big for him, which made him look even smaller than his pint-sized three foot six inches. And he was plainly terrified. Though Barclay aimed a smile at the lad, it did nothing to stop him shaking, for Ralph Barclay was unaware how unnerving his smile could be.
‘The Premier,’ Burns piped in high, hymn-singing voice, ‘has sent me to inform you that your lady wife has put off from the shore.’
‘Thank you, Mr Burns.’
‘Sir,’ the boy replied, turning to leave, only to spin back again as his captain addressed him.
‘I have not had a chance to ask you, Mr Burns, if you are settling into your new berth?’
Burns looked confused. ‘Sir?’
‘Well, boy, are you?’
‘Yes, sir, I am sir,’ he stammered.
‘Good. Then be so good as to see a chair is prepared to hoist my wife and your cousin aboard, one with a stout pair of arms. I will not have her risk a soaking on a slippery gangway.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
‘Carry on, Mr Burns.’
The boy positively shot out of the door, making Ralph Barclay think back to his own days as a midshipman, to the filth and the humiliations, the hunger, the rat-hunts, the fights, both those he had won, and the shame and pain of those he had lost. Hard as it was it had served to make a man of him, which is what it would do to little Burns. No doubt, in his first week aboard, he was suffering from bullying and all sorts of other tribulations, but that was part of growing up to be a King’s officer. The family obligation required him to keep an eye on the boy, but it must of necessity be remote, for too keen an attention would single him out for ill-treatment – no midshipman endured more of that than one perceived as a captain’s favourite.
‘Shenton,’ he called, ‘my best coat and number one scraper.’
As the small wherry left the shelter of the projecting mole, Emily Barclay, still a bit flustered from the haste with which she had packed, noted that the water beyond was much more disturbed that that within and she pulled her hood around her head, suspecting that the wind would be stronger too. It made no difference that this was river water, disturbed only by that ruffling breeze – she feared that she would be seasick, knowing that if she were, it would disappoint her husband. After the words they had exchanged that morning Emily was determined not to succumb – or if she did, not to let it show. It would be a terrible thing to let him down twice in twenty-four hours. Thinking that, she put her hand to her mouth, a gesture that was mistaken by one of the women rowing the boat, an ugly brute with hefty forearms and a hairy face, who nevertheless spoke in a kindly, deep voice.
‘Keep your eyes fixed on the ship, Miss, and that will help.’
‘Missus, if you please. I am wife to Captain Barclay.’
The second woman rowing, if anything even less prepossessing, spoke through the unlit clay pipe that had been clamped in her mouth since they set off. ‘You don’t look near old enough for that estate, lass, and I know, given the number of sailor’s wives I’ve ferried out for a bit of what cheers us sisters up. Not that all of them were wives mind.’ Emily Barclay flushed deep red at the allusion, thankful that her hood hid the fact, and that it served to muffle the coarse laughter that followed that sally. ‘Captain’s wife eh? Must be right comfortable for a bit of rumpy, the cabin of a ship, tho’ I confess to never having the pleasure of trying one.’
The confusion Emily felt then was also hidden by her hood. Though it was a private thought, never to be shared with anyone, she had found the consummation of her marriage both painful and uncomfortable. Nor had what had happened since led her to the pleasure some of her more worldly wise friends had promised. If conjugality was so disappointing on dry land, in a comfortable feather bed of proper dimension, what was it going to be like on board ship?
‘It would oblige me if you would keep your innuendoes to yourself,’ Emily said, with as much force as she could muster. ‘I will have you know that I am to sail with my husband, for the very good reason that we cannot bear the thought of being apart.’
‘What does innendo mean?’ asked the woman with the clay pipe.
‘’Nother boat approaching, Rach, that might foul our prow.’
Emily looked ahead, to observe two crowded boats speeding purposefully towards HMS Brilliant. But she was too busy thanking the lords of the sea for no feelings of sickness to give it more than a passing glance.
‘We got captain’s spouse aboard, Patsy, lass,’ she said, taking one hand off her oar to tap the brass-bound chest that filled the centre of the wherry, ‘and all her goods and chattels, looks like. Happen that there cutter will have to haul off and wait.’
‘Think she’ll be piped aboard, Rach, proper, like a captain would be?’
Emily pulled her hood closer to hide her face. She knew it was no true question, more a set up for another lubricious jibe.
‘Happen there’ll be a pipe a’waiting, Patsy, and a right stiff ’un at that.’
‘Smoke streaming out of the end I shouldn’t wonder.’
CHAPTER FIVE
Coming back on to the deck of HMS Brilliant, Midshipman Toby Burns had to stop for a moment to try and recollect where it was he was now supposed to go. If he was unsure of that, he was certain of where he did not want to be and that was the midshipman’s berth, his off-watch home during daylight hours. The last week had shattered any illusions he had about the romance of serving on a King’s ship. The images he had of glorious combat and wonderful camaraderie with like-minded fellows who knew his worth had run foul of the truth – he was stuck in a filthy hovel too small for the half dozen occupants with the foulest people he had ever met in his life, longing to get back to the safety of his night-time berth in the gunner’s quarters where he could, at least, sleep in peace.
‘Mister Burns,’ said Henry Digby, third lieutenant of the ship. ‘What did the captain say?’
‘Say, sir?’
Digby produced a half smile. ‘I do believe Mr Roscoe sent you with a message?’
‘Oh, yes!’ Burns replied, for all the world as if he was dredging up a distant memory. ‘Captain Barclay has asked that a chair be prepared for his wife to hoist her aboard.’
‘Then do you not think, young man, that it would politic to pass that message on?’ The boy blinked and nodded. ‘And might I suggest that having told the Premier of the captain’s request, you immediately ask his permission to fetch an appropriate means of conveyance from the wardroom.’
It was hard not to chastise Burns for being so slow, but then Digby was not much given to that; he could recall his own first days aboard a ship wit
h too much clarity. Not much bigger than this sprat before him, he had entered a world of dark and forbidding strangers, but he did have in his favour the fact that he was a scrapper, always ready to fight his corner. Looking at the pallid, plump face and flaccid eyes of this mid, he suspected Burns was not.
‘I should shift on that task, Mr Burns, for if you look towards the dockyard you will observe that Mrs Barclay’s boat has just come out from beyond the jetty.’
‘Aye, aye, sir,’ the boy replied, and shot forward to where Roscoe was supervising the slinging of a mainmast yard. The nod of approbation that Burns got for his suggestion, really Lieutenant Digby’s, raised his spirits somewhat, it being the first he could remember, and he shot off to get the chair, as instructed. There was purpose in his step, for he was on a mission, as he barged into the wardroom.
‘Hold up there, sir!’
Holbrook, the marine lieutenant, sitting cleaning a pair of long-barrelled pistols, looked extremely indignant, not difficult for a fellow of high colour and obvious conceit. Alone among the officers he had no duties to perform and he was enjoying the rare moment of peace that afforded him.
‘I’ve come for a chair, sir.’
‘A chair sir?’ Holbrook puffed, ‘I say you by your actions you have come for a barge. Charging in here without so much as a by your leave, sir. Where were you raised with such manners?’
By the Mast Divided Page 8
