A Sea of Troubles

by David Donachie

  ‘Nothing, my man, would convince me to stay in your hovel a day longer than I require, but since you have been paid for my accommodation and food you will oblige me by fetching back inside my valise as well as my trunk and, as there is no coach out of Lymington until morning, you will have to put up with my presence for one more night.’

  Throughout these irate exchanges her mind had been working on another level, seeking a way to deflect her accuser and she dredged up one card to play that might see this Admiral Sumner off. She knew the nature of the mission that Pearce was carrying out on behalf of the Government, just as she knew it was one shrouded in secrecy, for if he had told her what he was setting out to discover he had also sworn her to keep the information to herself, as well as why.

  William Pitt ran a government permanently on the cusp of being outvoted, indeed he depended on the support of his political opponents to stay in office and pursue the war. These were men who would not take kindly to anything smacking of a diversion from what they saw as the main effort and that was an expedition to the Caribbean to take the French sugar islands, this while many of the thinking classes in England harboured a deep suspicion of what was happening in the Vendée due to its openly Papist bent. Thus Pearce’s mission had to be kept from scrutiny, the very reason it had been financed by funds hidden from parliamentary examination.

  Fixing her countenance in a stern and reproving expression, she turned to Sumner and went on the attack. ‘As to you, sir, I think it best you crawl back into whichever hole from which you have emerged, for you are in danger of being exposed as not only a fool but a danger to the nation.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It did not occur to you to enquire where my husband is or what he is about?’

  ‘Why would it?’ Sumner sneered.

  ‘It should have. Do not be surprised, sir, to receive from the Admiralty an admonishment for poking your flabby nose in to matters which do not concern you, for endangering the safety of the nation and for risking the life and reputation of a gallant officer held in high regard by those whose task it is to run the country and prosecute the war with France.’

  ‘What stuff and nonsense is this?’

  ‘I admit my married name is not Raynesford and nor is it that of my husband.’

  ‘Ah-hah, the truth at last.’

  It is, Emily thought, but not as you see it, though that allowed her to speak part of what she was saying with utter conviction.

  ‘But you would have been better wondering why a naval officer would choose to employ subterfuge by using a false name rather than jumping to a conclusion that it indicated illegality. My husband is, as of this moment, at sea in command of a King’s ship, sir, and I do not know that they are such fools at the Admiralty as to entrust a vessel to an impostor.’

  ‘What ship, by damn?’

  ‘I am not at liberty to tell you that and nor, if my husband were here, could he. Nor would he be able to enlighten you to the nature of the mission in which he is presently engaged, for that, sir, is a secret.’

  For the first time Emily could see a crack in the admiral’s certainty; if he did not yet look troubled, he looked perplexed.

  ‘Secret?’

  ‘Just that! It is also vital to the security of Britannia, so I suggest it would serve you to depart and put from your mind what it is you have been about, for not to do so could see you in the Tower. The least I can offer you is not to inform the Admiralty of your foolish actions, though I cannot guarantee that my husband, once he has been appraised of your interference in matters which are none of your concern, will not pass on to the powers that be the fact that you have threatened to destroy what it is they are trying to achieve. What the consequences of that will be I cannot tell you, but possible disgrace looms and it will certainly find no favour at the Admiralty.’

  Emily could not know how those last few words played on the mind of Sir Berkley Sumner. He was, to those who had known him throughout his naval career, a prize dolt and, in terms of naval competence, a proper danger to those with whom he served. Having got to his captaincy through family connections rather than ability, from there he had, with age and seniority, though without a scintilla of sea time, risen to his admiral’s rank. Never likely to be entrusted with a command, Sumner was destined to be and remain a ‘yellow admiral’, the soubriquet for an officer who might carry the rank but would never raise his flag at sea.

  These were opinions of which he was unaware and did not share: Sumner reckoned himself as a genius both in the art of command at sea and the tactics required to achieve a great victory over his nation’s enemies, sure that those now leading the fleets were inferior to him in all regards. Thus he bombarded the Admiralty with pleas for a position suited to the talents he held were his and lived in constant fury at the rebuffs he received, however politely they were couched. His face, now showing doubt, told Emily that she had struck home, that Sumner was wondering if he had inadvertently overreached himself.

  ‘The Tower,’ he said weakly.

  ‘Perhaps not that, sir, but certainly censure. I decline to mention the fate of Admiral Byng.’

  No word could have hit home harder to a vainglorious fool; Byng had been shot by firing squad on his own quarterdeck for his failures off Minorca. But there was the matter of dignity, not to say the need to cover what might prove to have been a mistake.

  ‘Madam, I will not receive censure for doing my duty.’

  ‘I was rather referring to your exceeding it, sir.’

  Sumner pulled himself up to his full, if insubstantial height and again used the horsewhip to point at Emily, jabbing it to make his purpose plain. ‘I judge by your manner and facility of tongue that you are a lady of some intelligence. It may be you speak the truth. Have no doubt I will make enquiries regarding that—’

  ‘Do so, Admiral Sumner,’ Emily responded, cutting right across him again and forcing onto her face a knowing smile that did not lack a trace of pity; she did not feel as relaxed as she hoped she looked, for in her chest her heart was pounding, as it had been since she had come through the door. ‘I see you as a man who cares not one jot for the peril to which he may expose himself and perhaps it will be seen as such. Then again, perhaps it will not. What a sad end it will be to a long and no doubt distinguished career, in the service of His Majesty.’

  That got a meaningless grunt, but it also got him brushing past her and out into the street. Emily did not turn to see him go, she looked hard at the innkeeper.

  ‘Be so good as to fetch my luggage and then, when you have done that, make sure that a place is booked for me on the morning coach. I shall, of course, eat in my rooms tonight, and as to payments made and reimbursement, I will leave my husband to deal with that on his return to England. Added to that you will observe the mud on the hem of my dress. I require that to be cleaned.’

  The entirely made-up posture held until Emily was safe in her little parlour. Only then did the facade crack and tears begin to wet her pupils as she realised what a close call it had been. She had lied so convincingly and, looking around the rooms in which she and John Pearce had made love against all the laws of the land and holy matrimony, it made her wonder just how much the standards by which she had been raised had been eroded, which was not a comfortable state of mind.

  The use of the long oars, even with the tide to help, ensured that progress was slow, so it was late afternoon before Buckler’s Hard came into sight. HMS Larcher swept round the last bend in the river, a turn of ninety degrees that allowed the wind to play on what little sail Pearce had kept aloft and they assisted the forward movement. This relieved a weary crew to go about the duties required to get the armed cutter to a berth and obliged Pearce to put back on his heavy blue coat, for a boat had set off immediately they were sighted to lead them to the mid-river buoy to which they were to tie up.

  There was little to see other than that for which the hamlet had been created by a long-dead Lord Montague; it was a site for shipbuilding set at the b
ase of the New Forest, with enough water to float out empty hulls at high tide and an ample supply of suitable timber, long-matured oaks, near at hand from the forests planted eight hundred years before by William the Conqueror to facilitate his love of hunting. Boats had originally been built on the single hard that stood between two rows of red-brick cottages, these sitting at right angles to the River Beaulieu, literally rising from frame to hull outside the front doors of the resident workers, a practice that lapsed as vessels grew too large in size.

  Now twin slipways rose out of the still waters, they containing the vessels presently under construction, one a sleek frigate, the other hull a much more bulky seventy-four. The cottages remained, the homes of the workers and their families, creating a charming aspect given the open ground between them. There were more than a dozen trades accommodated in those cottages and many more workers came in from the surrounding countryside; shipwrights, ironworkers, caulkers, the sawyers with their ten-foot serrated blades used to cut the great planks from solid oak trunks. There were coopers and smiths, plumbers and riggers, all the way down to labourers and oakum boys. Over the intervening distance came the sound of hammers on wood and metal, while smoke rose lazily into the warm evening air from the pitch heaters and forges.

  ‘I got your dunnage ready, sir,’ said Michael O’Hagan, very quietly. ‘As well as that of the French lady and gent.’

  That ‘sir’ made Pearce smile; if ever there was man not naturally a servant it was his friend and, in truth, it had been no more than a convenience; Michael was to be admired for his loyalty, his strength and his good sense but not his gentility. Pearce’s reply, made without turning round, was equally soft, though it was hardly necessary as the commands began to be issued as shouts by the various warrants that would see the armed cutter at anchor.

  ‘You’ll be able to go back to calling me John-boy as soon as we’re ashore, Michael.’

  ‘Sure, and won’t I be grateful for it, for I’m weary of the sound of my grovelling. Mind, I might have occasion to curse you an’ all, given you’ve become too fond of that blue coat of yours, as well as ordering folk about.’

  There was no need to turn to note that the remark was intended to be humorous, it was in the deliberately mordant tone. ‘Somehow, Michael, I don’t think any curses heading my way will be coming from you.’

  ‘There’s a rate of trouble awaiting, that’s for certain.’

  ‘I’m sure Emily will see sense once matters are explained,’ Pearce replied, more from hope than conviction; he was not about to be open on the subject of his doubts even with a close friend.

  ‘Weren’t her I was thinkin’ of. Your Frenchie might not go quiet.’

  ‘I’ve already told her that she’s …’

  ‘Not your squeeze,’ Michael said, filling in the gap Pearce had left by not quickly finishing the sentence. ‘She might have said that to you, but I see the look in her eye when your attention be elsewhere and you allow her the deck. It is not short of hope.’

  ‘You’re mistaken.’

  Michael laughed softly. ‘Holy Mary, if I were you I’d be looking for an easier life, like puttin’ about and seeking out to tackle those French escorts we slipped by a few days past.’

  That conversation and the aid of the wind had got them near abreast of the village so that the twin lines of cottages were in full view; so was the lack of anything beyond them, for behind the twin rows of red brick lay a flat landscape bereft of any distinguishing features barring a few fields and endless forest. Both Pearce’s passengers were on deck to observe the arrival.

  ‘Monsieur,’ called the Count de Puisaye in his own tongue, his face bearing a look of distaste as he gazed at the barren and open countryside now exposed. ‘Surely we are not to land here?’

  ‘We will do so,’ Pearce replied, speaking in the same language and including an equally distressed Amélie in the statement. ‘This is from where we set out and I am obliged to bring the vessel back to this anchorage.’

  Obliged, Pearce thought sadly, because of the temporary nature of the command. For all I know, Rackham, the fellow who holds the post permanently, is fully recovered from whatever ailed him and, at this very moment, is gathering his own dunnage to come back aboard, where he can ply his flogging cat and keep going his various peculations, all spotted in the logs Pearce had studied when coming aboard.

  ‘But there is nothing here,’ Puisaye cried, employing a sweeping gesture accompanied by the kind of hurt tone, evidence of his personal vanity, which had already irritated his host since their first meeting. It was as if he was expecting a guard of honour as well as a delegation from St James’ Palace to be waiting in all their finery, so the reply was short of understanding; in fact it was downright brusque.

  ‘There is a road, monsieur, and one that will take you to where you need to go, just as soon as I can arrange transport.’ Then he turned to Michael. ‘We will need to take that strongbox ashore as well and find a way to get what’s left safe to London.’

  ‘Some of those hard-looking sods that delivered it would be handy. It would make a good day’s work for any thief who could get their hands on it.’

  ‘I fear, Michael, the task will fall to you and I.’

  ‘Then happen we’ll be travelling with loaded pistols.’

  The item referred to had come to them in a sealed coach with a strong escort, having originally held a sum of some thousand guineas, albeit the coins were from various countries such as doubloons and louis d’or, Dutch guilders, and even the not long minted American dollar. They had been provided in ten evenly filled bags by the Government, or more precisely by the prime minister’s right-hand man, Henry Dundas, the purpose to facilitate the rebellion in the Vendée if it was seen fit to disburse it. The strongbox now contained in value near four hundred pounds in gold coins.

  Between them Pearce and Michael O’Hagan had carried six of the pouches into the marshes where the rebels resided and they had left the money there for the intended purpose, even if Pearce had serious doubts it would do any good. Given Dundas had said it had come from something called the contingency fund, Pearce reckoned it to be money that had to be kept from public view – such a fund had to have a secret purpose. He could not just hand it over to anyone, which meant the safe option of boating it to Portsmouth and putting it in the care of the Port Admiral was not available. Besides, since it was his personal responsibility, he had signed for it, so there was no choice but to keep the residue under his own care until it could be formally handed back and accounted for.

  ‘Come to think of it, I will have to raid one of the remaining bags to pay for a coach to London for our count as well as the strongbox itself. I’m damned if I’m going to facilitate the journey for either out of my own purse.’

  ‘And who, sir,’ Michael asked with a twinkle in his bright blue eyes, ‘is going to pay out for the lady?’

  ‘Dundas can pay for her as well,’ Pearce snapped, as he turned and entered his tiny cabin, Michael on his heels. ‘Now I need to go ashore and bespeak some kind of conveyance big enough to get our charges to Lymington.’

  ‘Are you sure that’s were you should take them?’

  ‘I have no choice, Michael,’ Pearce responded, as he unlocked the strongbox. ‘The coach that will get Puisaye to London goes from there.’

  ‘Sure, John-boy,’ Michael hissed, too softly to be overheard, ‘you’ve not thought it through. The coach passes and picks up at a few places on the way, an’ if my memory is right some of them ain’t much further off than Lymington.’

  The response came when Pearce was standing up, a thick canvas bag in his hand, which he was unlacing to open: the prospect of getting Amélie away without Emily ever knowing he had brought her back. ‘Now why did I not think of that?’

  ‘Don’t you know, sir,’ Michael said in a louder voice, as well as one not short on irony, ‘that the donning of a blue coat, from what I have been able to see with my own eyes, does little for clear thinking or commo
n sense?’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Heading back up the main New Forest road towards his home in Winchester, at a much more leisurely pace than that with which he had made the original journey, Admiral Sir Berkley Sumner was busy composing in his head the letter he would send to the Secretary to the Board of Admiralty. Sir Phillip Stephens was the person to whom he had despatched an enquiry regarding Lieutenant Raynesford, prompted by the appearance of the name in the social column of the Hampshire Chronicle as having recently arrived at the King’s Head in Lymington.

  First he would acknowledge that his curiosity about serving naval officers was an indication of his deep interest in his profession (to others he was a nosy old soak). Then he would show appreciation for the man’s acuity, as well as the quite proper discretion he exercised in failing to include him in what was a covert undertaking. He would then tell Sir Phillip of how he had, by pure accident, come across and aided the secret scheme being undertaken by the aforesaid Lieutenant Raynesford, indeed he would make the point that, thanks to his timely input he could modestly suggest that matters were on course for an improved conclusion.

  This would back up what would inevitably follow, for he was much given to pestering Sir Phillip and the Board, a repeated request that, given he had proved his worth as a gallant and intelligent officer he be given his due in terms of employment at sea, or if that was not available, a shore command that went with his rank and abilities.

  If the Comte de Puisaye had been troubled by the sheer lack of anything of prominence in the appearance of Buckler’s Hard, the same notion occurred to Jahleel Tolland when he actually got round to examining how he was going to accost John Pearce. He and his brother, when making enquiries, had not attracted more than the slight level of interest accorded to strangers, albeit Franklin’s scar being so obviously recent had aroused comment; the same could not be said for a group of eight armed and mounted men riding in to the place at a pace to send up clods of the greensward, and that was not aided by their appearance. They looked like what they were, a band of right hard cases, and in a spot full of toiling labourers they stuck out like a sore thumb.