“Mr Marks!”
“Sir Frederick!”
“Just ‘sir’, thank’ee, Mr Marks. I ordered you to report to the First Lieutenant in fifteen minutes. You chose to disobey me. Have you a reason?”
Marks was stupid as well, protested that a gentleman could hardly change his dress under the hour, the more especially when the servant simply chose to walk off after showing him his cabin.
“I actually had to unpack a part of my trunk myself, sir!”
“My coxswain is not a servant, sir! You will be standing watch and watch with Mr Backham these next few days, Mr Marks, until the other officers join, and you will never be late for duty on this ship again, sir! Carry on, Mr Backham.”
A party of hands had been set to work high in the maintopmast, greasing the pins on the new blocks, ensuring that each ran freely. Backham ordered Marks aloft to supervise this vital work, explaining that in the absence of a boatswain an officer must take charge. Marks began the climb upward, looking down at each step up the shrouds, slow and obviously unhappy, even more obviously unused to the height.
“I wonder when he will notice that the standing rigging is all new, Mr Backham?”
“Freshly tarred, sir? Not too long, I should imagine.”
Down the Hamble on the ebb, three big bends to Calshot and the Water, out past Lee through the Solent and into Spithead, making sail very cautiously with her attenuated crew and new rigging taking its first strain. The wind was light, the sea calm in the waters protected by the Isle of Wight, the day quite warm despite the lateness of the season, sailing a rare pleasure with no great urgency or need to crack on. They approached the harbour in relaxed fashion.
“Signal, Mr Marks! Where do we berth?”
In the absence of midshipmen the junior lieutenant was responsible for signals, a fact known to everybody except Marks. He searched frantically for the book, could not find it – it was in fact in the Master’s cabin, Nias waiting to make the issue until he was asked for it.
“Ordnance wharf, sir,” Nias finally called, knowing all of the flags off by heart.
“Acknowledge.”
The yeoman raised the flags himself, not waiting for instruction from Marks.
“Mr Marks! You really must do better than this, sir, if you wish to sail on this ship.”
The rebuke stung Marks, too many lower-deck faces studiously blank for his self-esteem, and he was too tired from working watch and watch to be cautious.
“Sir! I was not made aware – I must protest!”
“Not on my quarterdeck you do not, sir. Mr Backham!”
“Leave the deck, Mr Marks,” Backham solemnly commanded.
“But…”
“Go below, sir. Now!”
“But…”
“Article Twenty, Mr Marks?”
The threat of court-martial for contemptuous behaviour to a superior brought Marks to his senses – he would not hang for it, but he would be broken, publicly humiliated and dishonoured. Vindictive admirals had been known to have the press-gang to hand – any man who had used the sea could legally be pressed in time of war and a broken ex-officer had no Protection, and would face the grossest humiliation on the lower deck.
Marks went to his cabin, wrote his apology and request to exchange out of Trident, had them conveyed immediately to Frederick, received instant acceptance of both.
“Marks? Said to be a bastard nephew of the Duke of Richmond, Sir Frederick, unacknowledged, of course. The normal for his sort – book time stretched to its very limit, service in a flagship, Port Admiral’s staff, never been to sea further than Port of London to Harwich. Appeared here with his orders three weeks since.” The Port Admiral was open in his contempt for the extremes of nepotism involved – interest was one thing, but abusing the Navy was another. “Sent to you in expectation of prize-money, I suspect, you being ordered to rich waters, potentially. An attempt to get the little sod out of his uncle’s purse, I would imagine.”
“He has requested an exchange, sir.”
“So he told me – I do not know how you achieved it, Sir Frederick, but you have my congratulations! Do you know Matthews of the Spartan? No? You are lucky – an ignorant brute of a man! He returns to the blockade after a refit, caused mainly by his bad seamanship, sailing on the tide. His new Fourth was one of your young men, and it was easy enough to exchange him for Mr Marks, Matthews having been made by Vice-Admiral Farquhar in compliment to his captain of the time, and more than willing therefore to do you a good turn. Mr Bennett is very pleased at the unexpected change, and I think you will gain a good officer by the looks of the boy.”
“He is one of the best, sir. Has Charybdis paid off, sir?”
“This month, Sir Frederick, sent home after finding an uncharted rock off the Corsican coast and her pursuing a pair of Frog merchantmen with evil intent. She sank both with her chase guns when it became clear she was going no further. She was pumping four glasses in every watch when she came in, her people almost exhausted – six months in the yard, at a minimum. The bulk of her people I have kept together in the barracks. There seemed little point in dispersing them in dribs and drabs, knowing that Trident was due to commission any day, and bound foreign on a special service. Be that as it may, sir, they are marching to the Ordnance Wharf at this very moment, I believe.”
“Marching, sir? There’s a new come-out for the Charybdises!”
“Possibly I overstated the process, Sir Frederick. They will be together, accompanied by petty and some of the warrant officers, the bos’n proudly at their head – that I know for a fact, for he told me so, when he showed me his presentation call.”
“Good! I need him, sir, badly.”
“Midshipmen McGregor and Green?”
“Welcome, sir – they both have the makings. I have two others already, one from the estate, who I know and like the look of, one I have never seen, the nephew of the owner of the yard at Bursledon – a case of the good of the service, sir.”
“One of those! Needs must, Sir Frederick…”
“When the Devil drives, sir. He may be a good lad, one never knows – I shall give him his chance. The Gunner, sir?”
“Your man from Charybdis has moved up to a 74, at Campbell’s strong urging, and I have replaced him with Mr Plumb, newly made, a young man, Hampshire born and bred, indeed from your home area, Sir Frederick – a Botley man, as am I!”
“I did not make the connection, sir – the Black family are, of course, neighbours to the Harrises!”
All was explained. It was very much out of the ordinary to hold a crew together in the barracks, however pressing the demands of any new-commissioning ship – but the lands of Black and Harris marched together and the families would have to work closely in Parish matters – a relationship that would become even more important when Frederick inherited as he with his prime interests in Dorset might have been inclined to neglect his responsibilities in the lesser estate, would not do so now.
“My brother William inherits, of course, Sir Frederick, but we Hampshire folk must stick together!”
Plumb would be one of Admiral Black’s people, and Frederick’s responsibility now.
“Two more lieutenants, I believe, sir?”
“Waiting, Sir Frederick, will join this afternoon, unless you have particular reason to take another of your own?”
“No, sir – I have no candidate at all.”
“Good – it is easier for me. A pair of quite ordinary young men, both with sea time in the rank. Merritt and Archbold, Second and Third, respectively, Merritt small ships, a sloop and a jackass 28 his experience, Archbold has only served in third rates.”
“Thank you, sir. Do you have anything to tell me of Backham, sir?”
The private word on officers was vital to any captain, was always unofficially passed on, except where captain and admiral were not on terms.
“Thirty years of age – was wrecked off the Norway coast three winters back – the Undine blown north and north befo
re a storm and finding the Skerries. He brought a boat into Bergen after three days, just himself and four men surviving.”
“A good seaman, sir!”
“Of the best, but a hard man – he had to be to live, I suspect. You are known as being no friend to the cat, Sir Frederick?”
“A dozen if I must, sir, two exceptionally, but not if I can avoid it. I will not tolerate thieves, and I will have no truck with revolutionaries, but, otherwise, I think there must be a better way of keeping a good discipline.”
“I am inclined to agree with you, sir, but you might be well-advised to make yourself very clear on this to Mr Backham. The quality of mercy is not one that is known to him, I believe.”
“He will come to it, sir! Thank you for your advice, it may make it simpler for us both, sir.”
“The purser and doctor of the Charybdis have both begged to sail with you again, Sir Frederick.”
“Both welcome, sir – I know Mr Jenkinson’s little tricks and truly value Doctor Morris. Are the Indian men still of the crew?”
“Thirty or so of Lascars? They are.”
“Good! Steady, honest men – they are too light for the great guns but they are skilled topmen and very pleased to board with cutlass in one hand and long knife in the other and no notion of surrender or prisoners.”
“You amaze me, Sir Frederick – though, when I think of it, the Bombay Marine has a fighting reputation that matches ours, and their men are all Indians, the great bulk of their warrant officers as well and all of their Marines. We know the quality of the sepoy, too.”
Both were aware that all of their officers were British, neither was prepared to admit that this was not a necessary thing. They dropped the topic.
“Orders, Sir Frederick – we assume that you will be able to sail in about two weeks and you will make for Malta, that to be your base, and from there you will be a general nuisance to the French and, most importantly, will persuade Johnny Turk to keep his nose out of our affairs at sea. As you will know, there is to be a stroke at the Northern Alliance soon, Sir Hyde Parker and Lord Nelson between them will open the Baltic to our interests again, and we cannot set battle fleets to Copenhagen and Stamboul and keep the Channel Fleet high enough to guard against invasion.”
“So, sir, I am perhaps to succour the odd Greek rebellion so as to frighten the Turk, set pasha against bey in the Islands, kick French arses in sight of the Turks, to show what we can do, and generally amuse our friends and dismay our enemies, the meanwhile tipping my hat in benevolent neutrality to the Sublime Porte.”
“Exactly, Sir Frederick – you are, in effect, to say that this is what we can do with one ship – go to war and just see what our fleet would make of your possessions in Europe! We do not believe that the Turk can ever be a friend, so he must be too frightened to be an overt enemy. The Mussulman has no place in Europe, I believe, and when the French are finally finished it may well be time to tell him so – but for the while he must simply be held.”
“There was some talk of an adviser, sir – for the politics of this are outside of my experience and I will need someone who can tell me who I can thump and who had better be left alone, who is an ally and who is a target, in fact!”
“You will be joined by one of those people from Whitehall, Sir Frederick. Fluent in Turkish, Arabic, Greek, French and who knows what besides. Knife in the back type, no concept of honour – you have heard of them, I am sure.”
Frederick had heard of them, everybody had, but very few actually seemed to know who they were, except that they almost certainly were not gentlemen, were not men of honour, and, as for the few women, well, everybody knew exactly what they were. The series of Jacobite threats – and actual rebellions – had forced the creation of networks of intelligencers, and then agents provocateur, saboteurs and downright assassins. As the Jacobite menace had receded into a haze of alcoholism and excess piety so the new professionals had turned their talents elsewhere. It was now generally felt that Army, Navy and Foreign Office ran a network each, that the Home Office employed a number of more or less organised people and that others reported semi-autonomously to Mr Pitt. Amongst the independents the Honourable East India Company kept an eye on Russia and Persia whilst the Canada Office maintained a watching brief on the United States. The net result was a mass of intriguing and laughably incompetent agencies, as much concerned to do each other in the eye as to benefit the process of government, and all wide-open to penetration by ideologically motivated outsiders. The French were reputed to receive many intelligence reports days before they reached Whitehall.
“Where will he join, sir, and in what rank?”
“Malta, civilian interpreter, messing in the wardroom and with his own cabin – there will be papers.”
“Clearing for action could be a problem – we could carve a hutch out of the bos’n’s stores space, perhaps. That can be organised, I am certain – the advantage of a razee, sir, there is more room in the hull than your normal fifth rate possesses. The disadvantage, of course, is that she requires so much heavier a crew.”
“You will be about sixty men short, Sir Frederick, and will have to take your turn with quota men, gaol-delivery and press – but there will be a few volunteers, no doubt, and you can always pick up boys.”
John Kent arrived from Abbey on a coastal lugger from Bridport, accompanied by seven landsmen come to join their squire. Men came aboard to join every hour it seemed. The great bulk of them were firmly put off again, cripples and consumptives who had been set ashore to starve and hoped to blag their way back to sea again, to die with full bellies in familiar surroundings in the worst case. Doctor Morris detected the unsound before they could be read in, removed them inexorably, ears closed to their miseries, real as they were – there could be no place for passengers. Two or three every day were found to be sound, some of them experienced, able-bodied seamen, and were taken on without question. They were almost inevitably deserters but there was no Provost branch to investigate them and no officer on Trident would ask embarrassing questions of valuable hands.
No quota men came in from the inland counties in their fortnight, but the Assize court sat in Chichester and proved a goldmine. Wool was rising in price – the mills in the north were producing more and more of fabrics, exports were rising and the demand for uniforms was high; the bulk of the French army, for example, wore English broadcloth on their backs, smuggled with the blind eye turned by government of both countries – and the farmers of the Sussex Weald and Downs had been shifting increasingly to sheep over the past few years. Sheep required half the labour of milk cattle, one fifth of the men needed for wheat, and the sheepwalks had created a festering grievance of the unemployed. The starving labourers had finally combined and rioted in the past month and the dragoons and militia had rounded them up before a hanging-and-transporting circuit judge. Some two hundreds of commuted convicts were brought in chains to the fleet; two dozen of them slapped and kicked up Trident’s gangplank.
“Eight boys, sir, and we are at full,” Backham exulted. “I shall call upon the orphanage this day.”
“Do so, Mr Backham – orphans are generally better than the products of the streets supplied by the Bench. Take some pains to sort out lads amenable to discipline, for I hate beating the boys, or any of our people, do not wish to do so except as the very last resort. I have no love for oil of cat as a cure for a crew’s misbehaviour, am not even in favour of casually starting or clouting men to ginger them up. Mind you, that does not apply to midshipmen – they, without exception, benefit greatly from regular thrashing!”
“There is a need to punish men on occasion, Sir Frederick, if you will excuse my contradiction, sir.”
“There is – and thieves and mutineers need not look to me for mercy, Mr Backham, but I find that admonishment, stoppage of rum, cleaning the heads, often work better. And, sir, if the divisional officers and warrants and petty officers are on their toes, are awake to everything that is happening, then commonly in
discipline can be stopped before it is started – not always, but very often!”
Backham capitulated, having little alternative.
“I shall point this out to them, sir, and all shall be aware of your views on starting the men. Now that we are up for men, sir, we shall be ready to sail in two days. The guns are in, as you know, and the shot lockers are full, surprisingly so, the Port Admiral has encouraged a degree of open-handedness it would seem. We have beef, pork, bread, flour, suet, raisins and dried plums, peas, butter and cheese, beer, rum, tobacco, lemon juice, cocoa and oatmeal, all stored dry and in date order. There is as well a consignment of sauerkraut and of red cabbage in vinegar, sent by way of experiment by the Sick and Hurt Board, sir, the accompanying letter stating that they wish to see whether the people’s health will generally benefit – less in the way of boils and abscesses in particular, so Doctor Morris states.”
“Interesting, Mr Backham – how much?”
“A pound of each per man per week for six months, sir.”
“Eighty or so barrels – we have space, fortunately. Let the men be informed that it is an order that they will consume their cabbage, like it or not.”
“Aye aye, sir. Let me see, water is taking today,” Backham consulted his notebook. “Purser has all of his stores up, bos’n, cooper and sails are complete. Doctor is due a final delivery tomorrow, laudanum and bark all that is to come. Powder will be taken at anchor in Spithead, of course.”
“There will be a delivery from Eley as well, Mr Backham.”
“Excellent, sir – I had heard that to be your habit, had hoped it would be so. One sheep, eight pigs, two dozens of laying hens, two goats in milk in the manger. Also, sir, a pair of Indian monkeys, brought aboard today, from Charybdis, I understand.”
“Oh, good! I had thought them dead when I did not see them. Wise and well-mannered beasts, I must greet them!”
Backham shrugged – he had hoped for their expulsion, monkeys not being his favourite form of sea-going life.
Britannia’s Son (The Duty and Destiny Series, Book 4) Page 16
