A Flag of Truce

by David Donachie

  Pearce looked out at their charges, the squadron of French seventy-fours, wondering what the folk on the Rock would make of the ships and their human cargo. That got him to thinking about being forced to lie up and wait for Neame’s wind; they would have to do likewise and that could create problems. Gibraltar was one of the few places where the rules regarding sailors going ashore were relaxed, quite simply because there was nowhere for them to run. The Spanish guarding the border at La Linea, in a time of peace, would clap them in goal before returning them; no British tar could be allowed to create dissention when they so badly wanted the Rock back. In war, a more common circumstance between the two powers, the case did not arise. The only other option was a boat to the Musselman shore, where anyone deserting the King’s Navy could exchange life between decks for a life of rowing a Barbary galley with a whip as encouragement.

  ‘I don’t suggest that the French sailors be allowed ashore, sir. Some of them would be bound to try the Spanish lines, but I wonder about the officers, if they give us their parole. It would, after all, be a courtesy I think they would extend to us.’

  Digby toyed with his wine glass, keeping a firm grip on the stem to ensure that the contents stayed within the confines of the bowl, with the ship bucking about on a heavy sea. Pearce could see that he was possibly amenable to the idea, yet not wholly convinced.

  ‘I foresee a problem of perception, Mr Pearce. We now know, because of contact, the men we have dealt with are not so different from ourselves.’ What a difference eight days makes, Pearce thought; at the outset of their voyage the men aboard those ships had been die-hard Jacobins to a man. ‘Yet this is not an opinion vouchsafed to those in command at Gibraltar. It may be they already know of Lord Hood’s plan, given the number of vessels bearing despatches which pass through this station. In which case they will think of them as rabid dogs, to be shot on sight should they snarl. I doubt the Governor will take kindly to folk like that roaming his bailiwick.’

  ‘You and I could disabuse them of that notion, sir.’

  Digby produced one of those throat-clearing coughs which were used to cover his embarrassment. He did not want to say that any recommendation from the likes of John Pearce would, if his name was known, likely have precisely the opposite effect to that sought.

  ‘I have been told by Mr Neame that Algeciras Bay is an uncomfortable anchorage on this wind.’

  ‘I will ask, Mr Pearce, but I cannot say that I can guarantee acceptance. Strange things are said to happen to those stationed at the Rock, something to do I suppose with the constrained nature of the posting. I have noticed it induces in them a level of hatred of the enemy that is exceptional in its vehemence. And when we are at war with Spain…’ Digby raised wonder-filled eyebrows to denote that the Rock’s inhabitants, in those circumstances, became quite mad. ‘Now, Mr Pearce, I think it is time you and I returned to your numbers.’

  It was Pearce’s turn to inwardly groan. Digby had undertaken to help him with his geometry and the like, Mr Neame his previous tutor being too busy on this wind, and he could not decline. Yet he knew very shortly he would answer some gently put enquiry like an idiot, and the feeling that induced would not be ameliorated by an understanding look in his captain’s saddened eye.

  ‘Do you have any money, Michael?’

  ‘A bit, which I got from that bastard Taberly for doing his bidding with my fists.’

  ‘Rufus?’ the boy shook his head, and Charlie spoke before he was asked. ‘Not a pot to piss in, Pearce.’

  ‘Nor yet a window to throw it out of,’ Pearce added, finishing the mantra that Charlie Taverner was so fond of. He reached into his coat for his purse. ‘Then I shall provide.’

  ‘My, Pearce,’ exclaimed young Rufus, which had O’Hagan looking around to see, due to the lack of respect in that remark, they were not being overheard. ‘You are well found.’

  It was money that he had been given to go ashore when Toulon was still in French hands, an advance from Hood’s secret funds. Since no one had asked for it to be returned, and he had used so little, he now considered it no more than his due for that hazardous excursion. He tipped them two guineas each, amused at the way Charlie seemed able to palm it and make it disappear, but then he had been a sharp before being pressed, a man who lived off the gullible who flocked to London to see the sights. Rufus jingled the coins in his hand, leaving Pearce to wonder if he had ever held so much money before; perhaps, as a bonded apprentice to a tight-purse master, he never had, and that was why he had run to the Liberties.

  Michael O’Hagan just grinned; he would have seen such sums and more, being a highly rated man with a shovel in a world being everywhere dug up; canals, foundations, drainage channels and cellarage for new buildings, hewing for coal, and the hardest task of all, a sinker of wells and mine shafts. Michael had done them all: what he had never managed to do, as far as Pearce could tell, was to hang on to what he earned. He was a man to whom it came easy, so he was a person to see it go easy, as well. He worked to drink and he drank or charmed a wench with his earnings, though he was inclined to turn contentious under the influence. Pearce could recall him that first night they had met; drunk, a bellowing bull who had tried to knock his block off, which had him wonder if what he had just done was a good idea.

  ‘Don’t get into trouble, any of you.’ Pearce insisted, articulating the concern. ‘Remember I will be part of the authority forced to punish you if you do.’

  ‘Sure, John-boy,’ Michael said with a grin, ‘would we be after embarrassing you?’

  Peace returned the grin. ‘I bet you can’t wait, Michael.’

  Moreau and his fellow commanders had been through these straits before, and they required no orders to make a good southing so as to round Punta Europa. Pearce got a good idea of what Neame meant just by how long it took all five ships to tack and wear through the narrows, before they could give themselves enough sea room to put up their helms and clear into Algeciras Bay. The town after which that was named lay across the harbour from the Rock, and even if there was peace, even if Spain was at this time an ally, there would be no traffic between the British and the Andalusians on mainland soil. The flags that flew on Gibraltar, which could be seen through a long glass from Algeciras, were like salt on an open wound.

  ‘It’s a damn good thing that the Dons are with us, Pearce,’ said Digby. ‘I think if they were not we would be unable to leave five thousand sailors in view of temptation. We would have to anchor them right inshore and put a guard ship with loaded cannon on their weather beam.’

  ‘Boat’s ready, your honour,’ said Dysart, who was acting as Digby’s coxswain.

  ‘Mr Harbin to accompany me, Dysart.’ Then he turned to Pearce. ‘I will leave you to take young Farmiloe ashore, Pearce, after I have seen the admiral. It will give you a chance to get to know him better and perhaps lay some ghosts.’

  That was the first time Digby had alluded to the fact that Farmiloe had been part of the press gang that had taken him up. Had he been watching them; his Pelicans, himself and Farmiloe, and noted that even after he had been reassured the boy still maintained a distance? On the one occasion Digby had invited the two mids to dine, the still bandaged Harbin, once having consumed a glass or two, had been all volubility. Not Farmiloe; he had sipped quietly, spoken little and stopped if he saw that Pearce wanted to speak. If Digby had spotted the reserve, and discerned the reason without asking, he was showing an acute sense of atmosphere.

  ‘I know,’ Digby added, as Harbin ran to change into his best coat, ‘that this is a short commission, yet I sense the ship to be reasonably content. I would, if possible, have it fully so.’

  ‘I will do my very best, sir.’

  ‘I know you will, Mr Pearce, for if I thought otherwise, I would not have presumed to mention it.’

  ‘When can we give some shore time to the hands, sir?’

  ‘When I have done my duty to the flag officer, and have his permission.’ Seeing the implied question in Pearce�
�s reaction he added, smiling, ‘Never fear, he will not withhold it. The tavern keepers and whorehouse madams of the Gut would have his intestines if he denied them their customers.’

  ‘Then I look forward to taking Mr Farmiloe ashore, and showing him the sights.’

  ‘For the sake of the Lord, Pearce, don’t get the lad poxed.’

  ‘Sorry to keep you waiting, sir,’ gasped Harbin, lifting his hat to show an ugly red scar.

  ‘You are keeping an admiral waiting, boy, not me.’

  The shock of Harbin’s freckled face made Digby burst out laughing and he patted him on the back as an encouragement to make for the gangway. Watching them go, Pearce thought it was indeed a happy ship, and the man responsible had just gone down into the cutter.

  ‘Disputes, sir, I fear disputes. I am plagued with them on this station, which I put down to the wind, which is not only constant, but can be hot like the hobs of hell one day, and like Arctic ice the next.’

  ‘Admiral Hartley, I agree with you about guard boats for the crews. I merely ask that the French commissioned officers be allowed some freedom.’

  ‘I would gift it them, man, but I can tell you that in an instant they would be atop the Rock at dawn, facing some bad-tempered bullock. You have no idea what service on Gib does for soldiers. They are a dammed nuisance in any case, but stationed here brings out their very worst traits. I swear the apes behave better.’

  ‘If we were to provide escorts, sir.’

  Hartley was a fat little fellow, a perfect officer for a shore appointment, and probably damned glad to have it, given the only other option was a yellow flag and enforced retirement. As a sea-going officer he had struggled to gain respect, yet he had interest, the kind of connections that kept him from mouldering in the country or shrinking and losing money at the baths and card tables of some spa. Right now, he was rubbing one of his several chins, and musing on what had been proposed.

  ‘Do you have a commitment to get every one of these rogues to Biscay?’

  The implication of that question was obvious; if one of them got speared or struck down by a musket ball, would Hartley suffer for it?

  ‘Not as individuals, sir.’

  ‘Officers with officers?’

  ‘I think we could do even better than that, sir. An officer and a chosen party of hands as escorts should keep them from mischief.’

  ‘Very well, Digby, but ration them their time ashore, and make sure if the wind shifts they are not lost in the arms of some trollop. I want then out of my command as soon as possible.’

  Pearce came on deck as soon as Farmiloe informed him that Faron’s cutter had put off from the shore, so it was only idle curiosity that had him looking to the west when he sighted the familiar rig of a ship he knew well, the Postal Packet Lorne, and if that was the case it was almost certain that her Ulster-born captain, Mr McGann, was conning her at that very moment. Such a sight lifted his spirits, not that he was in any way down, but McGann was a man he esteemed, a fine sailor loved by his family of a crew, who had shown him a degree of kindness on the way out from Portsmouth to the Mediterranean that had made a task, which he saw as a duty, a pleasure.

  ‘Mr Farmiloe,’ he said pointing due west. ‘I am terribly tempted to give that ship opening the bay a gun.’

  The youngster was slow to respond, as he always was with Pearce, but finally curiosity got the better of him and he looked at it through a glass. ‘Why, sir, it is naught but a Postal Packet by its ensign.’

  ‘I know the captain and the crew, and they will be ashore at the same time as you and I, so I can look forward to making an introduction.’ He looked over his shoulder, to see the cutter closing, and gave orders for the gangway to be opened, and everyone to be ready to receive, with due ceremony, the captain aboard.

  ‘How went it, sir?’ he asked of Digby, once their salutes were complete.

  ‘Well, Pearce, very well.’

  ‘The admiral said yes?’

  ‘With qualifications. The French must be escorted at all times, and I have said it will be officers and a party of hands, but best of all Pearce, he has granted me permission to sleep out of the ship. It is a dangerous thing for a sailor to say, but I long for a night in a motionless cot.’

  McGann was not hard to find. The run of taverns that made up the Gut were crowded with sailors from all the ships stuck for a westerly passage, plus the army, though the officers and ranks of the garrison tended to favour different venues, and the odd local, who were Spanish in the main, but prepared to deny that for profit. The captain of the Lorne was well on his way to being drunk, with that glassy-eyed look and hint of a sway that Pearce recognised. Yet the smile was the same drunk or sober, and when he saw Pearce his arms went out, thumping inadvertently another customer round the ear, and in a trice he had his much taller friend in a crushing embrace.

  ‘Mr Pearce, sir, can I tell you how happy I am to see you, sir. What good fortune attends.’

  Pearce looked over McGann’s shoulder and greeted the members of his crew, all of whom had been kind to him, as McGann shouted for more drink, this while one of his men sought to pacify the man who had been clouted.

  Having, with some effort, detached himself, Pearce introduced his companions. ‘May I name to you first, Lieutenant de Vaisseau, Gerard Moreau, who I regret to say, speaks no English.’

  ‘Pas de problem, mon ami,’ exclaimed McGann, taking and pumping Moreau’s hand. ‘Voulez-vous prendre un boire avec moi?’

  ‘Mon plaisir, monsieur.’

  ‘This,’ Pearce interrupted, albeit he was amused by McGann’s less than perfect French, ‘is Midshipman Farmiloe, like me of HMS Faron.’

  ‘Young man!’ exclaimed McGann, in a voice that carried and bounced off the smoke-blackened walls. ‘You too will drink with me.’

  ‘And…’

  ‘Say no more, Mr Pearce, until you have a tankard in your hand.’

  That did not take long, McGann being a well-known customer; Lorne ran the mails and official despatches between England and Gibraltar on a regular basis. The people who owned this tavern knew his shout and knew how to serve him. Everyone within close proximity was handed a drink, including the total stranger he had accidentally buffeted, which mollified the man more than the apologies of McGann’s crew.

  ‘You will recall me telling you about the men I was pressed with,’ Pearce said, his voice raised to cover the din of drinking salutation. ‘I am happy to say I have them here with me.’

  ‘John Pearce, you have achieved your object.’

  ‘Not quite, but I want you to meet my Pelicans.’

  Each got a hearty shake. McGann, who was a short fellow, looked like a dwarf beside Michael, and though Pearce sought to explain what had actually happened as opposed to that which McGann supposed, he had a strong feeling not a word penetrated. He looked at Moreau, who was laughing, not at the little Ulsterman, but because of him.

  ‘Un homme très amusant, Monsieur Pearce, je pense.’

  Funny yes, thought Pearce, but he could be trouble also, having a fatal flaw when in drink of assuming that every woman he met was madly in love with him, a fact he would act upon even if their escort, or the husband, was standing right next to them. He was a gifted fellow at sea, and an absolute menace ashore, something Pearce had had occasion to witness and confirm, which had him wondering what the combination would be of that man drunk, as well as Michael O’Hagan. It did not bear thinking about.

  McGann was in deep conversation with Moreau now, while Michael, Charlie and Rufus had been taken up by the crew of the Lorne, which left Pearce with a rather stiff Farmiloe.

  ‘I wish I could persuade you to relax, young man. I have already told you I bear you no malice, yet I fear you do not quite believe me.’

  ‘I do, sir.’

  Right then, Pearce resolved to get the boy drunk; perhaps then, whatever fears he was harbouring would emerge. He had just put his tankard to his lips, after signalling to the innkeeper for a round of refills, w
hen a loud and peremptory voice interrupted him.

  ‘There, sir, you sir!’

  Pearce turned slowly to look into the red and furious face of an army officer, using his elbows to make his way through the crowd. There was something about him that was familiar, but Pearce could not place why it should be so.

  ‘I see by your countenance, sir, that you do not recall me?’

  ‘I do not.’ Pearce looked at the insignia, unsure of the rank.

  The man’s hand swung, and though Pearce ducked away it still caught him a glancing blow on the cheek and all he could hear was the voice shouting. ‘Perhaps, sir, that will refresh your memory, you damned coward.’

  Pearce moved fast, just ahead of Michael O’Hagan who looked set to flatten the soldier. For him to strike an officer would be tantamount to a capital crime, not that Michael would hesitate because of such reasoning. Instead Pearce’s hand shot out, open-palmed, and caught the redcoat under the chin, sending him reeling back into the arms of a group of fellow soldiers who had obviously followed him across the room. Suddenly there were two groups, those not party to what was obviously going to be a brawl, moving away.

  ‘You do not run this time, sir,’ shouted his assailant. ‘Perhaps you have learnt not to be shy since we last met.’

  Pearce recognised him now. On his last visit to Gibraltar, in the company of Captain McGann, he had been obliged to strike this fellow. Not that the redcoat was entirely at fault: McGann had been making advances to his wife, a voluptuous-looking creature with an ample bosom, who really should not have been in a place of such low repute. In seeking to apologise on McGann’s behalf he had been, himself, insulted, and the major’s continued refusal to accept it as an error had sparked Pearce into an action he had later regretted; he had punched the sod. A general mêlée followed, involving the officers of the ship that was to take him to meet Lord Hood, but he had been hustled away. With orders to weigh, there was no time for the duel which was bound to follow.