by V. A. Stuart
“Aye, aye, sir.” Phillip knew better than to ask questions when his commander was in this mood and he was turning away to carry out the order he had been given when North called him back.
“Pass the word for the Surgeon,” he said. “I am going below and I am still far from well, unhappily … so you will have to carry on. Prepare to coal ship first thing tomorrow morning. We shall sail for Kavarna Bay to join the Black Sea Fleet as soon as our coaling is completed.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Phillip glanced at the ranks of motionless men, still standing to attention in their divisions and asked, his voice expressionless, whether shore leave might be granted to the watch below.
“Shore leave, Mr Hazard? To this undisciplined rabble?” North’s eyes were blazing. “We shouldn’t get half of them back.”
“But, sir—”
“That will do, Mr Hazard. No shore leave is to be granted, in any circumstances, to anyone … and that includes the officers. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly clear, sir.” From force of long habit, Phillip controlled himself. It was, in any case, only what he had expected, he thought bitterly … and what Anthony Cochrane had predicted. But at least the ship was not to remain at anchor in the Horn for a week, which he supposed was something.
“We are not on a pleasure cruise,” North snapped, “and the sooner this ship’s company realises it, the better. War is about to be declared at any time … it may even, according to His Excellency, have been declared in England already. He hinted that it had, which I imagine means that he has been informed by telegraph, but he has to await the official dispatches before the news can be made public …” his tone was expansive as if, Phillip thought, it gave him considerable pleasure to suggest that he had enjoyed the Ambassador’s confidence during his brief sojourn at the Embassy. “I shall be spending the night ashore,” North added. “At Missiri’s Hotel… . His Excellency has invited me to dine with him. But now I am going to try to get some sleep and I’ll thank you to see that I am not disturbed unnecessarily.”
“Very good, sir.” Phillip dismissed the ship’s company and, having sent word to Surgeon Fraser that he was required in the Captain’s cabin, he ordered “make and mend clothes” to be piped for the watch below. To Martin Fox, who had taken over the deck from Cochrane, he entrusted the unloading of Mademoiselle Sophie’s baggage.
Fox gave the necessary orders. He asked, as he and Phillip watched the baggage being winched up from the hold, “But why is Furious to receive this luggage, Phillip, do you know? Are our passengers to be transferred to her also?”
Phillip shrugged. “One must presume they are, although the Captain did not say so. And, as I’ve frequently assured you, Martin … I don’t know any more than you do about our passengers.”
“You still have not found out the real identity of our beautiful archduchess or her destination?” Fox pursued. “Oh, come now, Phillip, you must have some idea! Did she not confide in you when you walked the deck with her last night?”
“No, she did not,” Phillip returned shortly. “The extent of her confidence was the information that she expects to marry soon after she reaches her … wherever that may be.” Again he fingered the little package which Mademoiselle Sophie had given him and finally, after some hesitation, he took it out of his pocket. “She presented me with this, though, as a parting gift,” he confessed, reddening. “With a strict injunction that I was not to open it until she had left the ship. Do you suppose that it may contain a clue to her identity?”
“Open it and see, my dear fellow!” Fox urged. “That is the only way to find out, is it not?”
“You will keep it to yourself, if the package should contain such a clue?” Phillip asked cautiously.
“Of course I will, Phillip … what do you take me for?” Fox laid a hand on his arm. “I meant no affront to you—or to Mademoiselle Sophie—when I remarked on your walking the deck together. I happened to see you, that was all.”
“And you happened to draw the wrong conclusions,” Phillip accused wryly, but Fox shook his head.
“No,” he denied, “certainly not. She is shortly to be married, you say … and I know you to be the soul of honour, Phillip my friend. Besides, it is evident, is it not, that our mademoiselle must be of royal blood? If I ever doubted that, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe dispelled my doubts this morning. He accorded her the most obsequious bow when he greeted her and his wife was about to drop her a curtsy when His Excellency drew her attention to the fact that the entire ship’s company was standing watching her, so she changed her mind and merely bowed too. But the intention was there and people like the de Redcliffes don’t bow the knee to just anyone. I’m quite sure.”
“No, I suppose not.”
“I am still curious to know who our mysterious archduchess really is.” Fox smiled. “Open the package like a good fellow, I beg of you, and don’t keep me in suspense any longer.”
“Very well but … ” Phillip broke the seal on the tiny package. “She told me that it was a souvenir and it may only be that … we may learn no more about her when we have opened it.”
“Nevertheless open it, for pity’s sake, or I shall be unable to contain my curiosity!”
Phillip prised open the wrapping, bringing to light a small leather-covered case. There was a ring inside the case, he saw, of heavy gold, set with a single, very fine emerald, obviously of considerable value, and he stared at it in some dismay. He had expected a trinket, not a gift worth a small fortune, and he was about to say so when Martin Fox leaned forward and took the ring out of its velvet-lined case. He held it up to the light and, as he examined the stone, his lips pursed in a silent whistle.
“It is a signet ring,” he said. “But for heaven’s sake … look at the device on the stone!”
Phillip peered over his shoulder, unable at first to make out what the device was intended to represent. “Well, what is it?” he demanded. “I can’t see anything very startling about it … apart from its value, that is. Is it some sort of bird?”
For answer, Martin Fox laid the ring on the palm of his hand. “It is a double-headed eagle,” he stated flatly. “The Imperial Russian Eagle … our mademoiselle is a Grand Duchess, Phillip! Which at least explains the secrecy, does it not? And the haste with which she had to be conveyed here. Also …” he frowned thoughtfully, “her destination.”
Phillip looked up, startled. “You mean … Sebastopol?”
“Perhaps. Or Odessa. Wherever she’s going, she has to reach her destination before the declaration of war. Hence the Furious … didn’t you say that she would finish coaling this afternoon and get under way immediately afterwards?”
“Yes. But she’s to call at Beicos Bay?”
“Which faces Therapia … where the Ambassador has his summer residence, Phillip! My guess is that Furious will stay in the Bosphorus only long enough to pick up Mademoiselle Sophie and the Baroness … then she’ll weigh for the Black Sea. If the declaration of war is imminent—as it evidently is— then there will be British consular representatives and British residents to be brought here from Russian ports. No doubt that is why the Furious is being sent to … well, wherever she is being sent, to Sebastopol or Odessa.” Fox’s expression relaxed. “Of course, this has to be the explanation!”
“Has it?” Phillip demurred.
“My dear Phillip, there’s no other explanation.”
“But what was Mademoiselle Sophie doing in England if she is a member of the Russian Royal Family?”
“Several members of the Russian Royal Family were in England last summer,” Fox pointed out. “Don’t you remember? They were received by the Queen, it was reported in the Court circulars. Let me think … Yes, I remember. There was the Tsar’s eldest sister, the Grand-Duchess Marie, widow of the Duke of Leuchtenberg, who stayed in Torquay with her children. There were also the Crown Prince and Princess of Wurtemberg—the Crown Princess was the Grand-Duchess Olga of Russia, another of the Tsar’s sisters—who came on a State
visit to London last July. They stayed at the Russian Legation and were attended wherever they went by the Russian Minister, Count Brunow. I can’t recall exactly when they left but I do remember that the Duchess of Leuchtenberg remained in Torquay until the end of October, because my mother was there and she wrote and told me she had seen them. I believe they all crossed in the Vivid to France early in November.”
And Mademoiselle Sophie had been left behind, Phillip thought … had she not hinted at something of the kind, when she had first talked to him on the train? What had she said, before the Baroness had warned her to be careful? “I have been forgotten or overlooked” … and then, when he had complimented her on the excellence of her English, she had told him that she had been in England for nearly a year, for the purpose of learning the language. Yes, it all fitted neatly enough and, as Martin Fox maintained, it was the only explanation. Mademoiselle Sophie, the gentle, charming child he had admired so much was, he realized regretfully, a member of the Russian Royal family … a niece, probably, of the Emperor Nicholas or, at all events, closely related to the despotic ruler of Russia. He had had three brothers as well as the sisters Martin Fox had mentioned … the Emperor Alexander, whom he had succeeded in 1825, the Grand-Duke Constantine, and the Grand-Duke Michael, all of whom were dead. But they could have had children, Phillip supposed, and Mademoiselle Sophie might be one of them. Whoever she was, in the coming war she would be on the other side, the enemy side, cut off from him by more than time and distance … he caught his breath sharply.
Fox said, as if reading his thoughts, “They are not pure Russian, you know, any of the Tsar’s family … they all intermarry with Prussian, Austrian, or Germanic royalty. The present Tsar’s mother was a Wurtemberg princess and his wife is a sister of Frederick William of Prussia, is she not?”
Phillip shrugged despondently, “That does not alter the fact that Mademoiselle Sophie is about to return to Russia and that we are about to go to war with the Russians, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t,” Fox eyed him with a sympathy he did not voice and went on, with an abrupt change of tone, “The cutter is loaded. Shall I call her away?”
“If you please.” Phillip returned the ring to his pocket. The cutter was under the command of Midshipman O’Hara, he recalled, who was an intelligent and trustworthy young man … ”Ask Mr O’Hara to find out where Furious is going, if he can.” He sighed. “For my own peace of mind, I should like to know her destination, Martin.”
“Yes, of course,” Martin Fox acknowledged. He crossed to the rail and, cupping his hands about his mouth, summoned young O’Hara to the quarterdeck.
Five minutes later, Phillip watched him take the cutter smartly away. He was back within an hour with the information that Furious had received orders to proceed with all possible speed to Odessa and, under a flag of truce, to take off the British Consul and any British residents who desired repatriation before war broke out. There was no mention, however, of Trojan’s passengers., whose baggage, according to Midshipman O’Hara, had been received and loaded aboard the paddle frigate without comment.
Trojan remained in the Golden Horn for a further 48 hours. Then, having coaled and taken on water and stores, she was ordered to Beicos Bay, where a further unexplained delay kept her at anchor for some six hours. There were a number of other British warships in the Bosphorus, including the steamscrew frigate Niger, 14, whose Captain, Commander Leopold Heath, had his wife with him at Therapia. Phillip, during one of Captain North’s periodical absences on shore, contrived to visit Niger and dine with her First Lieutenant, from whom he obtained a good deal of useful information regarding conditions in the Black Sea.
North returned on board during the afternoon of Thursday, 7th April, declaring himself fit to resume command and finally, in company with H.M.S. Highflyer, a 26-gun steamscrew frigate commanded by Captain George Moore, Trojan was ordered to proceed to Baltchik Bay, off the port of Varna on the Bulgarian coast of the Black Sea, to join the Fleet. The two frigates weighed anchor at six that evening and, by threethirty the following afternoon, sighted the combined British and French Fleets, lying at anchor in the bay.
They made a brave and impressive sight, Phillip thought, as Trojan—following the movements of Highflyer—prepared to salute the flag of Vice-Admiral Dundas, flying in the three-decker Britannia of 120-guns. He counted seven British sailof-the-line, including Britannia … Trafalgar, 120; Queen, 116; Albion, 91; Rodney, 90; Vengeance, 84; and Bellerophon, 80. In the distance he also recognized Agamemnon, the fine new steams-crew two-decker of 91 guns, in which the flag of Rear-Admiral Sir Edmund Lyons was flying, returning to the Fleet anchorage in company with the 70-gun Sanspareil, also steam-screw. There were a number of frigates, both sail and steam, and among these Phillip noticed the beautiful Symondite, Arethusa, 50, coming in under a fine press of canvas from the N.E., and the paddle steamers Terrible, 21; Tiger, 16; Sampson, 6; and Inflexible, 6.
Highflyer saluted the flag of Admiral Dundas and then, on running in and shortening sail, made the signal “Where to anchor?” To this the flagship replied “Where convenient.” She’d run in under her screw but Captain North, without giving any reason for so doing, had ordered Trojan’s screw raised, stating that he was finished with engines … with the intention, Phillip could only suppose, of demonstrating his seamanship.
It was, in the circumstances, a disastrous decision. Highflyer steamed slowly between the two lines of British ships, her hands aloft furling sail, and she came-to under perfect control at the end of the second line. Trojan had, perforce, to follow her but there was no room to haul to the wind and, with Agamemnon, Sanspareil, and Arethusa also coming in, a signal from the flagship ordered Trojan to take a berth alongside Tiger, for which North had obviously not been prepared. Phillip, without waiting for orders, yelled to the topmen to sheet home top and topgallant sails and, as the frigate ran the gauntlet between the two lines of anchored first- and second-rates, he watched apprehensively from the weather hammock netting, aware that the gap between them was narrowing.
From the quarterdeck, North issued confident instructions to the quartermaster which the unfortunate man, sweating profusely, did his best to obey. Trojan, lacking steerage way, cleared Rodney and Bellerophon, not without difficulty, but, in swinging, carried away Albion’s jib and flying jib-boom and snapped off her own close to the cap. It was an inauspicious beginning and called forth a rebuke from the flagship and an acrimonious signal from Captain Lushington of Albion when, finally, Trojan came to and dropped anchor in her allotted berth. North, white to the lips with fury, blamed everyone but himself for his ship’s unfortunate display. He put the wretched quartermaster under arrest and was in the process of dressing down both Phillip and Burnaby, the Master, who had the watch, when a second signal from Britannia ordered him to report aboard immediately. Burnaby called away his gig, while Phillip went to the forecastle with the Boatswain and Carpenter and a working party, to salvage as much as he could of Trojan’s damaged jib-boom and rigging.
He received a visit from Agamemnon’s acting First Lieutenant, who was an old friend and who brought with him Admiral Lyons’s Flag-Lieutenant, Frederick Maxse. Having entertained them both in the gunroom, he was invited to dine on board Agamemnon the following day. He accepted the invitation with pleasure but added the cautious proviso that he might be unable to obtain Captain North’s consent to his absenting himself, since all Trojan’s officers were under suspension of leave.
“So it’s like that, is it, Phillip?” his friend Thomas Johnson suggested shrewdly and, when Phillip flushed uncomfortably, laid a consoling hand on his arm. “All right, you need not answer my questions, old man. One hears rumours, even in the Black Sea, you know.”
“Rumours, Tom? What sort of rumours?”
Lieutenant Johnson exchanged a significant glance with his companion and the Flag-Lieutenant said quietly, “Not particularly pleasant rumours, Mr Hazard. The one I heard came from one of our senior officers, when your
Captain’s name cropped up a few days ago. Didn’t he command the Guillemot brig on the West African Station, about eleven or twelve years ago?”
“Yes,” Phillip confirmed shortly, “he did.”
“Then I need say no more. However …” Lieutenant Maxse smiled engagingly, “If it would make it any easier for you to accept our invitation, I can ask Admiral Lyons to endorse it. I’m sure he will … he can’t do enough for me at the moment, because he’s about to replace me as Flag-Lieutenant with a nephew of his. Cowper-Coles of the Sybille, who is due here from the West Indies … but in any case, you served with his son Jack at one time, Tom tells me, and that is a certain passport to the Admiral’s table. So don’t worry about obtaining your commander’s consent, I’ll see to it that you receive an official summons and we’ll look forward to seeing you aboard Agamemnon tomorrow at noon.”
“Thank you,” Phillip acknowledged gratefully. “I shall also be looking forward to the occasion.”
The official invitation to dine with Admiral Lyons on board Agamemnon was duly delivered that evening and North, returning in an evil temper from his visit to the Commanderin-Chief, gave his consent to its acceptance with a bad grace. But he gave it and Phillip was satisfied, despite the tirade of criticism and abuse to which he was subsequently compelled to listen, and he made no protest when blame for the damage to Albion was attributed to his failure to wait for his commander’s order to take in sail. It was, he decided philosophically, a small price to pay for the concession he had won.
He won another when, next morning, instructions came for the drafts of Marine artillerymen and seamen—to whom Trojan had given passage from England—to be distributed among other ships of the Fleet, in order to bring their complements up to strength. Captain North left this task to him and Phillip contrived to send his brother Graham to the Tiger, to act as replacement for Captain Giffard’s Second Master, who had had to be put ashore in Constantinople owing to illness. The appointment, although necessarily of uncertain duration, carried with it temporary promotion to warrant rank and Graham was delighted. They bade farewell to each other with some regrets but Phillip was thankful that he had managed to effect his brother’s transfer when, within less than an hour of his departure to join his new ship, North asked for him with the avowed intention of returning him to duty with the Maintop Division.
