Hazard's Command

by V. A. Stuart

  Leach’s smile faded. For an instant, he looked surprised but then, recovering himself, he answered indifferently, “As you wish. I might point out that I could escape no more easily from the Captain’s quarters than from my own but … I will return there, if you insist.” He turned to Phillip apologetically. “I ask your indulgence, Commander Hazard.”

  Phillip went with him to the passage-way. Out of earshot of his tormentor, the Fusilier officer said dryly, “His attack of mal de mer—which I believe was severe—has not sweetened his temper, has it?”

  “It has not,” Phillip agreed, with feeling. “He has described my ship as a disgrace to the British Navy and threatened to make its filthy and insanitary state known to my Commanderin-Chief!”

  “Not seriously?”

  “Well, he seems to be serious. I console myself with the thought of what his own C.O. will do to him, when he joins his regiment.” Phillip smiled and saw the Major echo his smile.

  “Yes, indeed, that is a consoling thought. A strange young man, is he not? Thank God there are not too many like him in the British Army … or in the Navy, come to that. I am sorry about the meal. I had looked forward to dining with you and indulging my newly returned appetite.”

  “I can countermand the boy’s orders, if you wish,” Phillip offered, but the older man shook his head.

  “No, no, don’t bother. I’ll eat in my cabin. We shall both be rid of him by tomorrow, shall we not?”

  “It’s to be hoped we shall!” Phillip said emphatically. On his return to his day cabin, he found Midshipman Grey facing their guest in constrained silence. Durbanville bowed to him stiffly and took his leave without apology. When he had gone, Phillip motioned the boy to seat himself at the table, calling to his steward that they were ready for their meal.

  “Only for two, sir?” the man questioned, puzzled. “I understood you to say that the two military gentlemen were going to join you … and I gave them both your message, sir. The Major …”

  “See that the Major is served in his cabin,” Phillip ordered. “Mr Grey and I will dine here.”

  Young Grey said nothing, until the steward had served their first course and they were alone. Then, his voice oddly shaken, he said, “I know Durbanville, sir—I was at school with him. Not for long, of course, because I left to go to the Royal Naval College and I was three years younger, so I did not know him well. And I doubt if I’d have recognized him … I mean, it’s a long time ago, and he’s put on quite a lot of weight.”

  Phillip eyed him thoughtfully. “You hadn’t seen him since he came aboard then?”

  “No, sir. That is, not to speak to—I saw him when he joined, in the Ambassador’s caique. We all did, it caused quite a stir. And, of course, we all ragged Paddy O’Hara about that, because he reported to Mr Laidlaw that His Excellency was on his way out to us, and turned up the side party and a guard of honor!” The midshipman grinned, obviously still savoring the joke. “O’Hara was furious, sir, but we didn’t allow him to forget it.”

  Phillip, with vivid recollections of what the humorists of the midshipmen’s berth could make of such an incident, was hard put to it to suppress a smile. “It was an understandable mistake,” he suggested.

  “Oh, yes, sir, I know. Any of us might have made it.” Tucking in manfully to the enormous helping of roast mutton the steward had given him, young Grey observed appreciatively, “I say, sir, this is awfully good.”

  “I’m glad to see you’re doing justice to it.”

  “Oh, yes, indeed, sir. I doubt if Durbanville would have, though. O’Hara paid a visit to him in his cabin yesterday—the First Lieutenant sent him to find out how he and Major Leach were getting along—and he said that Durbanville was in a shocking bad way.”

  “Disgustingly seasick was O’Hara’s verdict, I believe,” Phillip supplied.

  “Not only that, sir.” Robin Grey’s ingenuous blue eyes met his with sudden gravity. “Paddy—Mr O’Hara, sir—said the fellow was in tears. In tears, sir, can you imagine that?”

  Oddly enough, Phillip thought, he could and found himself wondering anew about Henry Durbanville. Did the clue to his strangely unpleasant and contradictory character lie, perhaps, in his schooldays? Had his behaviour then given any hint of the sort of young man he was to become?

  “What was he like at school, Mr Grey?” he asked curiously. “Can you remember?”

  Midshipman Grey pushed his empty plate aside with a satisfied sigh. The steward served their second course and he waited, fair brows puckered in concentration, until the man withdrew. “Yes, sir,” he answered, “I do remember. Durbanville was a bit of a swine. Not to me, personally, but to some of the other fellows … especially the new ones. When I was there, he wasn’t senior enough to have a servant, only the prefects and Sixth Formers had them but he … well, he bent the rules rather and made some of them do his chores for him. If they objected, he beat them. I can remember that very well, because one poor little devil was brought into the san., and I was there, with a billious attack. Durbanville had laid it on too thick, sir, in this boy’s case. He cut him about the face with his cane and there were weals all over him, not only on his posterior, which he couldn’t hide.”

  “Didn’t Durbanville get into trouble over that?” Phillip enquired.

  Grey shook his head. “No. The kid was a well-plucked ’un, he didn’t give him away. But he told me who had beaten him and I wasn’t altogether surprised—surprised that it was Durbanville, I mean, sir.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, sir, he was known as ‘Bully’ Durbanville and some of the chaps used to call him ‘Hateful Harry.’ No one liked him much, not even the fellows in his own House—in fact, I don’t think he had a really close friend, not at school, anyway.” The boy hesitated, looking down at his piled plate and then, a trifle uncertainly, at Phillip. “He was always throwing his weight about and boasting about his father’s importance and influence, the people he knew and his money. At the time, sir, his father hadn’t a title, he was just plain Mr Durbanville … that was why I didn’t realize that Lord Henry Durbanville was the fellow I was at school with. Although I suppose I should have done … it’s an unusual name and I can recall his saying once that his father would eventually inherit a title from a cousin. But none of us took him seriously then—I mean, he was always making the most extraordinary claims, which we knew couldn’t be true, so we didn’t believe that one. The only one we did believe was the story about his Pater having money, because Durbanville never seemed to go short. He had a purseful of sovereigns on him usually and he spent them pretty freely. He seemed to think that money could buy anything.”

  “But you don’t think it can?” Phillip suggested.

  Young Grey shook his head. “Not anything, sir. Oh, it can buy a lot, I know but not the kind of things that Durbanville tried to buy. Things like …” he reddened. “Well, things like friendship and popularity, which have to be merited. I think he wanted people to like him but somehow they didn’t and so he put the best face he could on it and tried to pretend he didn’t care. He was rude to everyone and insolent to the masters and he used to talk awfully big, sir, in the hope that it’d impress people. I—er—” the boy’s colour deepened and spread. “I overheard part of what he was saying to you, sir, when Major Leach and I were waiting outside in the passageway, and to tell you the truth, sir, Durbanville sounded just like he used to at school. And you noticed the scar on his face, didn’t you, sir?”

  “I did, yes. I imagine it’s a duelling scar, of the kind they inflict on each other at German universities, isn’t it? Did he go to a German university?”

  The midshipman nodded. “Yes, I believe he did, sir, and I don’t suppose that improved him. I mean, in Germany the officer class behave like little tin gods, don’t they, sir? The Army officers, that is, and Durbanville hasn’t been in the Army for very long, so possibly he imagines this is the manner in which he’s expected to behave, if you see what I mean, sir.”

 
Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, Phillip reflected. This particular babe had shed a good deal of light on the complex character of Lord Henry Durbanville and now he was able to regard the arrogant young Guardsman, if not with liking, at least with a measure of understanding. If Grey was right, he was the product of an over-indulgent and wealthy father who, no doubt, had purchased him his captain’s commission—in one of the most expensive regiments in the British Army—for the purpose of family aggrandizement. And he had come out here, with no previous experience of soldiering at all, intent on proving his right to the rank he held and yet, probably, with the secret fear that others might dispute it. That he was in for a rude awakening seemed inevitable … but perhaps he would learn, as other men had learned amid the harsh realities of war, that there was more to soldiering than strutting round in a resplendent uniform and giving orders to men of the caliber of Major Leach. It might be the making of him, if he survived and, in the meantime, Phillip supposed, Henry Durbanville would have to be tolerated, but he hoped fervently that there would be no delay in putting the young man ashore. In a way, it was a pity that the weather had improved since, alone in his cabin suffering the pangs of mal de mer, he had caused no trouble. But now …

  “Do you think I’m right, sir?” Midshipman Grey had demolished the contents of his plate and he looked up expectantly to meet Phillip’s gaze.

  “About Durbanville? Well, it’s an interesting theory and I shall bear it in mind, youngster. I’d be obliged, though, if you did not repeat this conversation to your messmates. We’ll keep it to ourselves, shall we?”

  “Yes, of course, sir,” the boy assented readily enough but he looked a trifle crestfallen and Phillip smiled at him.

  “Would you like a second helping of that duff, Mr Grey?” he invited.

  The promptings of a healthy appetite fought a losing battle against Midshipman Grey’s reluctance to abandon his newly acquired role of amateur psychologist and adviser to the Captain. “Indeed I would, sir,” he admitted truthfully. “If I may, sir.”

  The steward, summoned to replenish his plate, did so with a lavish hand. There would not, Phillip thought, amused, be very much left of the meal which had originally been ordered for four. But, throughout the British Fleet, the midshipmen’s messes were notoriously ill-supplied, their rations meager, and their mess bills severely limited. It was therefore hardly surprising that when invited to dine with their seniors, the “young gentlemen” took full advantage of the opportunity to eat their fill of wardroom fare and, spooning large quantities of the sticky but sustaining plum duff into his eager mouth, young Robin Grey slipped easily back into the more familiar role of ever-hungry mid. By the time coffee had been served—steaming hot and in large cups—his bony young face was wearing a sleepy and very contented smile. He would, Phillip felt reasonably certain, be more inclined to regale his messmates with an exaggerated account of the hospitality he had enjoyed in the Captain’s day cabin than to repeat what he had seen or heard there—or even to mention what he had himself contributed to the conversation. The subject of food, in any case, was of more interest to his listeners than that of Henry Durbanville since, with the exception of O’Hara, none of the midshipmen had had any contact with him.

  And until Durbanville left the ship it would be better so, Phillip decided, as he dismissed Durbanville’s schoolfellow with the friendly suggestion that he had better “cut along and sleep it off.” He wanted no more trouble between his officers and their awkward passenger and, on the passenger’s part, no further cause for complaint, whether or not his complaints ever reached Admiral Dundas. Relations between the two services were on the whole very good, with seamen and soldiers serving side by side in the gun batteries on the Upland, sharing in their defence and, on occasions, mounting combined attacks or supporting each other’s sorties. Apart from the Naval Brigade of over 1,700 officers and men, 1,500 Marines and Marine artillerymen had been landed to take part in the siege and, in addition, much of the military transport was undertaken by ships of war and, on this account, it was of some importance to preserve mutual respect and cordiality between Navy and Army, as Phillip was well aware. While the presence of passengers, with the inevitable overcrowding and loss of efficiency this caused, was never wholeheartedly welcome aboard any naval vessel, so far as his own ship was concerned he hoped that nothing would occur to change the pattern.

  Had Major Leach been in command, he would have had few worries, but with Captain Lord Henry Durbanville … his brows met in a pensive frown. Durbanville’s lack of military experience was the danger but, by this time tomorrow, God willing, the fellow would be gone. Until then … Phillip sighed. He could only hope that, by exercising forbearance, no untoward incident would occur which might lead to trouble.

  *In a frigate, officers of wardroom rank messed in the gun-room.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Phillip’s hopes were, however, rudely shattered. Ascending to the quarterdeck in response to an urgent summons from Lieutenant Laidlaw, who was on watch, he saw that Durbanville had paraded his men, lining them up to form three sides of a square, with himself, two ensigns, and half a dozen senior N.C.O.s forming the fourth. They occupied every available foot of the forward part of the upper deck, each man in parade order, with the exception of three who, clad only in shirts and blue overalls, stood under guard in the center of the square. Their appearance made Durbanville’s intentions self-evident and Phillip swore softly under his breath.

  “I thought I had better call you, sir,” Lieutenant Laidlaw explained. “Although Captain Durbanville assured me that you had given your consent to his parading his men.”

  “I gave him permission to parade them for inspection, Mr Laidlaw,” Phillip answered, tight-lipped. “But not for this, as I need hardly tell you.” He felt a sudden cold anger well up inside him, felt the sour taste of it in his mouth. “Did he inspect them?”

  “Yes, indeed, sir,” Laidlaw said with distaste. “It took him something over an hour and …” He was interrupted by the arrival of Martin Fox, who had just time to warn him that Major Leach was on his way when the Major himself came striding across the quarterdeck to join them.

  “Commander Hazard”—his face was white and beaded with perspiration but he spoke with controlled calm—“the men whom that unspeakable little pup is proposing to flog are all my men, they’re all of the Seventh. Two of them received severe wounds at the Alma and the other has only lately recovered from the cholera. He could kill them, if he only lays on half the number of lashes he’s ordered! I cannot stand by and see it happen, although I have put up with the farce of my arrest with cynical tolerance until now, in the belief that I might thereby spare you unpleasantness. That was a mistake, of course, and I’m ready to accept the blame for my error of judgement. But now, in God’s name, sir, I must beg you, as Captain of this ship, to use your authority to put a stop to what is going on.”

  Phillip drew in his breath sharply. He had not wanted it to come to this, had not wanted a trial of strength between himself and the military command, as represented—however temporarily—by Durbanville. But the arrogant young fool had now made this impossible to avoid and, in the interests of justice and humanity, his own course was plain. He could not permit men, only recently discharged from hospital, to be flogged for no more serious a crime than failure to pass a kit inspection—but his authority, as the Trojan’s commander, was unhappily much less plain. He knew that he could not forbid the punishment but he could surely demand an explanation or even, if necessary, try to reason with Durbanville? The boy could refuse, of course but … he hesitated only momentarily, having an alarming vision of what might afterwards be made of his action and then, turning to Martin Fox, he said formally, “Mr Fox, be good enough to present my compliments to Captain Lord Durbanville and ask him to step aft to the quarterdeck so that I may have a word with him.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Fox acknowledged, an understanding gleam lighting his eyes as they met Phillip’s. For the sak
e of discipline, even Durbanville must not be humiliated in the sight and hearing of his men but Fox would deliver his message correctly, Phillip knew, phrasing it as a request and thus affording the young Guards officer the opportunity to withdraw without loss of dignity. It also offered him a chance not to withdraw, he realized, but that chance would have to be taken. He could not order an Army officer to attend him on the quarterdeck without good and sufficient reason and the fact that he did not approve of the manner in which that officer chose to discipline the men under his command was not anything approaching a sufficient reason. He nodded to Midshipman O’Hara who, as Midshipman of the Watch, was standing alertly by.

  “Accompany the First Lieutenant, Mr O’Hara.”

  O’Hara obeyed with alacrity, unable to suppress a delighted grin as he sped after Fox. From beside him, Phillip heard Major Leach give vent to a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Commander.” His voice was low. “I am indeed sorry to have placed you in so invidious a position but rest assured that I shall back you up to the hilt in any action you may deem it necessary to take. This unfortunate affair is entirely my fault—I should not have let that obnoxious young man supercede me in command.”

  “No, Major. The blame for it is equally mine,” Phillip told him ruefully. “I shouldn’t have given permission for the parade to be held. I’m afraid I gave it because I was in danger of losing my temper with Durbanville and, at the time, it seemed the easiest way to get rid of him. I was a fool—I should have known better!”

  “I overheard the manner in which he sought your permission,” Leach confessed. “And, in your place, Hazard, I’d have done as you did. Or worse still, lost my temper with him.”

  His admission was consoling but Phillip, watching Martin Fox, apparently engaged in an argument with Durbanville, was conscious of a gnawing anxiety. He had based his hopes on the belief that even Durbanville would not refuse his First Lieutenant’s courteously worded request but this, it seemed, was precisely what he was about to do. As if to confirm his assumption, he saw Midshipman O’Hara break away from the square of scarlet-jacketed soldiers to head towards him at the double.