A Sea of Troubles

by David Donachie

  Thus, after much discussion, it had been decided to land at a bay a little down the west coast then seek to take the high ground above the town itself, which would at least give the guns parity with the defenders, the caveat to that being the need to get the cannon off the warships and ashore, then up the steep escarpments to where the battery positions would be constructed, something the defenders might well think impossible. For all the jocularity and keen anticipation of the forthcoming battle, there was an undertow of hidden concern throughout the fleet. They would be landing on a hostile shore from boats – never easy, and if the garrison of Calvi was limited and insufficient to hold the beach they were still numerous enough to inflict heavy casualties prior to withdrawal.

  Thus, with the fleet hove to and Lord Hood’s permission to proceed, there was a final conference aboard HMS Victory, anchored off San Fiorenzo, really an excuse for a capital dinner at which the commanding admiral could praise those like Nelson whom he admired and do his very best to make sure that all knew it was not an emotion he extended to his second in command. If he and Hotham were naval rivals that extended to their politics, for Hood was a Tory and Hotham a Whig. Hood’s problem was Prime Minister William Pitt’s lack of a binding majority; while he could master the domestic agenda he needed the support of what were called the Portland Whigs to successfully prosecute the war. Hotham was of that faction and in constant communication with the Duke of Portland, and every letter did nothing to praise the abilities of his commanding officer, not that such an opinion was a secret.

  All around the fleet, flagship included, those who could write home were composing their final letters, the ones that would be sent to their loved ones should they expire in the coming action. In reality naval letters read like a chronicle; they were often written with no knowledge of when they would be sent, for even in such a well-ordered fleet as Lord Hood’s they would wait for the arrival of a packet bearing despatches and letters from home. So they tended towards a lengthy tale and most were only adding to what they had already composed and were penning sentiments that, regardless of the truth, sought to reassure their relatives of their happiness and good cheer, while inserting what should happen if anything should befall them.

  Toby Burns was bent over his own letter, but it was not to his family. These were communications he found hard to compose, not being as willing as his peers to disguise his loathing of a service that had him existing on a diet of foul food, often near to rotten in the cask, in the company of people with whom he shared at best mutual disinterest, and under the command of men whose soul aim was to make his life a misery. Occasionally he summoned up the will to lie, but always he really wanted to write home to say that his only wish was to get out of the navy and back to a school he had, at one time, desired to get away from with equal passion.

  Writing in reply to Lucknor was not easy and he had to remind himself that paper on which to do it was not in great supply, so he ended up with a set of corrected scrawls that would have taxed one of those coves that sought to decipher ancient languages. Toby did not want to blame himself in any way, yet even he could see that to plead outright coercion would not wash on the page, for it smacked of a weakness of personality that he did not recognise and was certainly not prepared to commit to paper even if it was designed to make him look innocent. Once again family obligation came to his rescue, and taking a fresh sheet he composed the best of what he had penned and scored out before sanding the letter, folding it and applying sealing wax, then penning the address.

  ‘Damn me, Burns,’ cawed one of his fellow midshipmen as he waved it to ensure the wax had dried, ‘I reckon the time you’ve been at it you have told your life story.’

  ‘At least, Myers,’ Toby responded, standing and crouching, for the deck beams were low, ‘I have a story to tell.’

  He was out of the berth when he heard Myers answer to that. ‘Am I alone in despising that admiral’s bumboy?’

  That led to a chorus of negatives, which infuriated him; why could they not see he had no desire to be cosseted by Admiral Hotham, no wish to be constantly put in jeopardy, which those with whom he shared his quarters mistakenly saw as an opportunity to distinguish himself? He would have gladly given those opportunities over to them, for in each one he had been granted the possibility of not surviving had been present, higher in his imagination than true, perhaps, but there nevertheless. Then there was his reputation as a hero, gained on the back of John Pearce off the Brittany coast. That it was false mattered less than the yearning he had to be shot of it, for that made everyone expect him to show reckless courage.

  The letter went to the second of the admiral’s two clerks, as did all those being composed, to wait for the next packet or a sloop being sent off to Gibraltar with despatches. Not an overly nosy individual the fellow nevertheless looked idly at the superscription, which was so unusual that he stared at it for some time. What was a toad like Burns doing writing a letter to the Inns of Court? The curiosity was mentioned to the senior clerk, Mr Toomey, who had been with the admiral for years and was something of a confidant – no letter went off to the Duke of Portland that he had not had dictated to, and approved by, him – so that when a seething Admiral Sir William Hotham returned from his uncomfortable dinner aboard HMS Victory this was mentioned, in turn, to him.

  Those who knew Hotham were given to remark on what seemed to be his endemic indolence. Had he been informed of that, the man in question would have pointed out that haste in making decisions was inclined to lead to crass errors of judgement; he was a fellow who liked to weigh matters before pronouncing on them and this was no exception, even if he could immediately discern what it might portend.

  ‘Are we at liberty to …?’ Hotham said eventually, not, as he often did, managing to finish the sentence. It made no odds – he was with a man who could read his mind.

  ‘We have a responsibility, sir,’ Toomey replied, ‘that no communication should be permitted that would diminish the effectiveness of His Majesty’s vessel of war on active service.’

  If that was imparted with confidence it was all show; there was no right by anyone to interfere with the private communications of correspondents writing home.

  ‘And the letter is available to us?’ Toomey nodded, as Hotham, for once, was able to quickly construct a suitable conclusion. ‘Then I fear young Mr Burns may be in some difficulties, Mr Toomey.’

  ‘Very possibly, sir,’ came the smooth reply.

  ‘I do wish he had possessed the faith to trust to me for advice.’

  ‘It had always been my position, sir, that lawyers are best avoided.’

  ‘He is too young to be making judgements that he might not appreciate the consequences of, don’t you think?’

  ‘Therefore it would be best if we know the contents of his letter, either to advise him if it is serious, or to merely forward it on if it is harmless.’

  ‘The seal?’ Hotham asked, only to receive in response a look that enquired if he was being serious. ‘Best fetch the damn thing, then.’

  Toomey reached into his pocket. ‘I took the liberty of bringing it with me, sir. With your permission I require a candle and a knife.’

  Having landed at Lymington, Pearce could not say goodbye to his oarsmen without he gave them something for their trouble – if it had been a private matter they had come to his aid so willingly; and then there was the rest of the crew to consider, which led to him dipping into Michael’s satchel and pushing aside his pistol case to extract a bit more of the money given to him by Dundas.

  ‘Can I say, sir, on behalf of the crew, it has been a pleasure to serve under you.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Dorling, it has been equally agreeable to see what a fine body of men Mr Rackham has under his command.’

  The mention of their permanent captain’s name produced a commonality of responses, many frowns, a few hissed curses and one man spitting over the side, which had the effect of making Pearce feel cheap rather than glad; it was as if he was cou
rting flattery and that was an activity he despised in others.

  ‘You had best be off, Mr Dorling, for there is not much daylight left. Convey my regards to Mr Bird, the Kempshall twins and, of course, Mr Bellam, the cook. Who knows, one day we may meet again.’

  ‘For which I can say they would hope, your honour.’

  He stood on the quay and watched the boat row away, staying there, much as he was eager to be off, until they were out of sight and then, with a lightness in his step he knew to be keen anticipation, made his way up from the harbour to the King’s Head Inn, aware that he had a physical as well as an emotional yearning for the presence of Emily Barclay. Indeed he was singing to himself as he entered the doorway to be confronted by an innkeeper who took one look at him and disappeared into the back of his establishment. Following him opened up the taproom and sitting there nursing a tankard was Michael O’Hagan. He stood up when he saw Pearce, but he did not smile and the way he said ‘John-boy’ while crossing himself did nothing to provide reassurance.

  ‘What in the name of creation has happened?’

  If, as he asked that, John Pearce had feared the worst, it came as no comfort to him to be told the truth. No, Emily was not harmed in any way, but at this very moment, if she did not know already, she was about to discover the one thing her lover had sought to keep from her.

  ‘Is it too late to procure a pair of horses?’

  By lantern light, Sir William Hotham, for the tenth time, was reading Toby Burns’ letter to Lucknor and wondering how to deal with it. The boy had gone from being a necessary asset to get Barclay off the hook – though being a bit of a nuisance by his needy presence – to a downright threat to his position, for if he had sought to limit the damage to his own reputation in his composition he had certainly done nothing to diminish the ordure he was prepared to heap on both his uncle and Hotham himself. What had been a very necessary construct to save a gallant officer from a pernicious accusation laid by a gimcrack officer was made by the young toad’s hand into a most damning conspiracy to utterly pervert the course of justice.

  To confront him was not a consideration, though Hotham was sure he could browbeat the lad into continued silence. The problem was that in the future some other person might lean on him just as hard to repeat these exaggerations he had just penned, and who knew where that would lead if there was no one around to impose restraint? All being well – sea state and weather – the assault on the beach south of Calvi would be going ahead on the morrow at dawn, so he rang a bell for Toomey.

  ‘Mr Toomey, when the orders were written for the morning, as regards our boats, where did you place Mr Burns?’

  ‘Why sir, right at the point, hopefully in the first boat to beach. That is the position where he can garner most honour. Have you not always shown him much favour in that regard?’

  ‘I have, many times, much to the annoyance of those with whom he shares his berth.’ Looking at the letter, now on the table, Hotham growled. ‘Still, he deserves no less!’

  ‘It’s not too late to make a change, sir.

  ‘No, Toomey, leave the orders as they are.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Emily Barclay read French reasonably well but had rarely spoken to a native with any degree of application until she had been resident in Toulon, first with her husband as prisoner of war, then in day-to-day contact with the locals as she helped out in the shore hospital set up by her good friend and surgeon Heinrich Lutyens. Being a nurse had provided both a distraction and a reason not to reside and sleep aboard HMS Brilliant; indeed it had given her an excuse to initiate a separation from Ralph Barclay that she hoped would not set tongues wagging. In that Emily was being naive; when it came to gossip a fleet at sea could match a clutch of fishwives on any given day.

  She had learnt the language under the tutelage of the governess from one of the local manor houses, who saw that having other girls in her class could provide a foil to aid her own charges. Seen very much as an aristocratic refinement she had attended twice-weekly sessions with a group of other aspirant girls and for the same reason: to be bilingual was to enhance the prospects of making a good marriage. The struggle to separate the divergences that existed had not been comprehensively mastered, not least the way gender was employed when referring to specific objects – but more tellingly was the need to employ the correct verb endings, and if that had been refined in Toulon, it had not been wholly conquered.

  So when she began a conversation with the count and Amélie Labordière, first inside the Stag Inn at Lyndhurst, then ensconced in the coach when they departed, being drawn by fresh horses, her conversation was not entirely fluent and if she managed to make herself understood it was not without repetition allied to some confusion on the faces of those with whom she was seeking to communicate. Then came another problem: her ear was not attuned to what was being said in reply, it consisting of sounds so unfamiliar and addressed to her in an accent with which she struggled to cope, for it was nothing like that of the Mediterranean French naval port.

  The Parisian accent was very different and originally her governess had learnt her French in London from a fellow Briton, so that, as well as any refinement that was Provençal in accent, rendered the conversation, if it could be called that, stilted in the extreme. This left Emily wishing she had the fluency brought on by living as a native Parisian that had been enjoyed by John Pearce. The expression ‘lentement, s’il vous plaît’ was frequently employed to slow what was a too rapid exposition from two companions; one reserved, the other extremely voluble.

  The Count de Puisaye was eager that this femme anglaise should know just how much the Revolution had impinged on him personally: the loss of his several houses as well as his estates, and naturally the rents and revenues thereof, the whole taken over by a rabble of sans culottes who would reduce them to a desert. The count had barely escaped with his life, but soon all would be restored to him when the British Government saw the sense of sending him back to the Vendée with the means to put the trouserless peasants back in their place. Even if Emily could only really pick up one word in three, it was noticeable from the odd barely suppressed yawn and expression of boredom that Madame Labordière found this exposition and complaint tiresome and it was with a sense of escaping what was turning into a tirade that she sought to engage more her fellow female.

  ‘And how, Madame,’ Emily asked, her voice paced and deliberate, ‘did you come to be rescued and brought to England by the Royal Navy?’

  Pearce had found horses in Lymington and they rode out as the sun was setting in a clear sky that would soon produce, once it had risen from its cheese-coloured position on the near horizon, a clear moon aided by strong starlight by which to proceed. He left behind him a very chastened innkeeper who had taken his tirade regarding Emily without a murmur; Pearce only realised why when they were well gone – he had forgotten to demand reimbursement for the days of non-occupation. The fellow might look cowed but he was much in profit, so being insulted was worth it.

  Michael had, as requested, left horses stabled in Lyndhurst, saddles and harness included, that he could claim as his own, so there was no sparing the ones he had rented from Lymington; they were driven hard so that he could get to a change before the Lyndhurst stables closed for the night, which they would do early in a quiet country town. In his imagination Pearce reprised any number of conversations that might be taking place, none of them inducing much in the way of comfort; perhaps Amélie would smoke who she was travelling with and show discretion, but if the way she had behaved aboard HMS Larcher was any guide, that came under the heading of pigs might fly.

  Likewise the notion that Emily would, on discovering that she was bouncing along a turnpike road with his ex-mistress, accept that the whole affaire was over, bordered on risible; if it was, why had he brought her to England? Many scenarios presented themselves and that continued after Lyndhurst when the pace, of necessity, had to be more measured; these horses had to get them all the way to Wincheste
r, a distance of over twenty miles. It was a tempo that allowed him to share his worries with his friend and riding companion, not that he got much in the way of sympathy.

  ‘How can you say I brought the whole thing on my own head, Michael?’

  ‘For no other reason, John-boy, than it be the plain truth. Sure, I will admit you’re a victim of your own soft heart, but Mary, Mother of God, it has done naught but get you into trouble since the day we met.’

  The reply had a definite note of pique. ‘It has led me to get you out of a few scrapes.’

  ‘It got me into more.’

  ‘It’s all the fault of those damned Tollands. If I had not had to deal with them I could perhaps have avoided such a meeting.’

  ‘Well, you are shot of those sods now.’

  ‘Not entirely, but they will serve in the navy for the duration of this war, which will keep them from bothering us.’

  ‘Did you not feel shame, pressing men after what we have been through?’

  ‘Not a jot – they were murderous villains who deserve a flogging captain and I hope they get one. Besides, I have yet to tell you of the arrangements I have made with the fellow in command of the receiving hulk.’

  As they rode, Pearce talked of his hopes in that area, which had the advantage of keeping his mind off more pressing concerns, making no attempt to sound anything other than a fellow proud of his own scheming.

  ‘So with luck we might see ourselves joined up again with Charlie and Rufus very soon.’

  In the waters off Gosport, on a creaking HMS York, Lieutenant John Moyle, his duties complete for the day, was considering, over an evening snack of cheese on toast washed down with some strong Gascony wine, how to play a very different game. That fellow Pearce had tried to be cunning, yet in truth he had been too open, for he had indicated to Moyle that at least two of the men he had taken up were not run-of-the-mill fellows. If he wished them to be separated that meant they were trouble together, and if they were a smuggling gang that told a mind not short of calculation that they might well be the leaders. It was not a question posed that was likely to produce a straight answer, but there were ways to ask that would get to the truth and perhaps, if his nose was leading him in the right direction, even more profit than he had got from his dealing with Pearce.