A Treacherous Coast

by David Donachie

  San Fiorenzo Bay required no more than another day’s sailing, unless the wind was foul. Reflecting on the word Digby had used as reported to him, Pearce saw this as portending an increased risk for him. Nelson was generally held to be soft in terms of discipline; Sir John Jervis by reputation as well as his actions already taken was anything but.

  It almost made him laugh to think what was coming might accidentally bring about that which Emily desired. Having resolved to stay in the service to avoid living off Ralph Barclay’s prize money, he might now find himself dismissed, if not from the navy, certainly sent home from the Mediterranean, and he could not envisage many senior officers rushing to employ him in home waters. He had in some way mitigated the feelings against him out here by his actions; that would not apply in the Channel.

  Being surrounded by his canvas, with really only Michael to talk to and then in whispers, he was just as prey to fantasies, if quietly so, as Henry Digby. He saw himself on the fringe of the parochial society in which Emily would mix, catching an odd glimpse of her and certainly enjoying no intimacy, while also being allowed an occasional peek at his growing child.

  In none of these imaginings could he see himself bearing it. He was, and had been all his days, too free a spirit for such a life and if he was not to take what he saw as tainted coin, how and on what was he to live? Perhaps he would take to emulating his father, traversing the country and seeking to stir the apathy of a too supine population, in which the rich cared nothing for the poor, outside, that is, the exploitation of their labour.

  To be in even distant proximity to Emily without any physical contact would drive him mad, and he was man enough to know that to hold for a three-year period to chastity, out of love for her, was unlikely to work out in practice. Red blood coursed through his veins and while he was not vain, he knew that women were attracted to him, and he to them.

  ‘What news on our hero, Michael?’

  ‘Sure he is still talking to himself, John-boy, but he takes the deck and looks to be content.’

  ‘Digby means to dish me.’

  ‘Then you must stand up to it and tell the truth of what occurred.’

  ‘The navy has a habit of taking the side of captains against lieutenants and truth is rarely a saviour.’

  ‘You’ve only been cooped up a couple of days and already you are digging your own grave.’

  It was necessary to make light of that. ‘Happen I should have you do it for me, Michael, you being a dab hand with a shovel.’

  Prior to being pressed, that was how Michael had made his money: good wages for a fast-digging navvy, on canals, turning farmland into formal gardens and hoicking out earth for the foundation of long rows of London houses. He was inclined to claim he had dug a trench from the west coast of England all the way to the Great Wen.

  ‘I confess not to know as much of these things as you, John-boy, but if he calls for a court, then you can ask the likes of Dorling and little Conway to swear to what they saw. And Mr Grey was ashore with you and will stand as witness to your actions.’

  ‘At what risk to themselves?’

  That saw the Irishman ball his great fists, knuckles standing out and proud. ‘Sure I think a hint that they might meet Davy Jones for tongue holding will serve to have them talk.’

  ‘That, Michael, would see you hanged, which thinking on it, is making me even gloomier.’

  ‘Sure if Mrs Barclay produces a boy he will struggle to be proud of you.’

  Did Michael know how the use of that name – he had never addressed Emily by any other – was even more depressing than the thought of letting down an unborn child? His friend was glowering, and no doubt in his imaginings, thumping several people for their transgressions.

  ‘Mr Pearce, may I enter?’

  ‘Of course, Mr Conway.’

  The canvas was swept aside. ‘We have raised San Fiorenzo Bay, sir, and the good news is that Commodore Nelson is there. The captain requests, once he has reported to the commodore, you prepare yourself to go aboard HMS Victory, which the admiral has taken as his flagship.’

  ‘With him having got there before me?’

  ‘Mr Pearce, I am not without sympathy, but—’

  The interruption was brusque. ‘You are too young for even the thought of coming to my aid, but please know I am appreciative of the sentiment.’

  The hat was raised, then the boy was gone.

  ‘Best bib and tucker, John-boy.’

  ‘Nothing less will do.’ That was followed by a glare at the unseen guard. ‘And as soon as Digby has gone, I am going on deck, even if a file of marines tries to stop me.’

  Which he did, wondering if his blue coat, no longer the deep colour it had been thanks to the Mediterranean sun, rendered him as elegant as he would like, only to then reason that vanity was misplaced. Given Tilley was with Henry Digby and the normal coxswain’s crew with him, Charlie and Rufus had collared places in the jolly boat, which turned out to be a wasted effort. Digby was taking no chances, he had sent his coxswain back to fetch him.

  Pearce felt all it needed was a slow drum roll, as he went over the side to sit in the thwarts and noticed that not a single oarsman would catch his eye or nod. When they hauled away, Tilley set no fast pace, possibly out of sympathy, but that did not suit his passenger, who wanted the whole thing over. He ordered the men to put their backs into it.

  No ceremony attended his arrival on the flagship and he found himself, having made his presence known to Jervis’s clerk, on the main deck of a hundred-gun vessel he felt he had been obliged to visit too many times and in too varied circumstances when Hood held the command, while Hotham had flown his flag in HMS Britannia. Where was he now, that slippery knave?

  Naples, they said, which caused Pearce to recall that Hotham was an old friend of the British Ambassador, Sir William Hamilton, and that took his thoughts to Emma Hamilton, her questionable background and present eminence, at least in Italy. The lady had been more than kind to Emily and helpful to him and she deserved his gratitude. Did she deserve to have Sir William Hotham as a guest? He doubted they would get on.

  ‘Lieutenant Pearce.’ He turned to see Admiral Parker.

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Sir John is waiting for you.’

  ‘And Captain Digby, no doubt.’

  ‘He also, yes.’

  Making their way aft, the great cabin door was opened and he entered to see Jervis, a small, compact man with a grizzled countenance, standing, hands behind his back, in the middle of the room. Digby, hat in hand, was off to one side. It was not until he was right through the door he saw Nelson was also there and if his face was anything to go by, John Pearce was in for a rough time.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ‘Admiral Parker has told me something about you, Pearce, and I have to say that I do not find it inspiring. If you address me in the manner he tells me you have chosen to use with my predecessors, I will send you home in the bilge of a cattle transport.’

  How to play this; that was the vital question. Jervis came with the reputation of something of a martinet, never afraid to flog and had even been known to hang transgressors. He was not Sam Hood, who for all his irascible nature, after their first encounter, had revealed a core of fair-mindedness and, if it was well hidden, an appreciation of anyone who stood their ground. Added to that he usually required a service, which precluded the keelhauling he was constantly threatening.

  Hotham’s weaknesses extended beyond an inability to push home a fleet action and he had ruined his chances of overawing him by a chicanery that left him exposed. Hanging an officer was out of the question, and that was the only way for Hotham to ensure Pearce’s silence. Neither of these traits applied to the admiral now glaring at him as if awaiting some form of barbed insolence. That failing to arrive, he growled out the complaint.

  ‘I have a verbal report that you quite blatantly disobeyed your orders.’

  The word verbal was important; Digby was, it appeared, not willing to put a
nything in writing that might come back to bite.

  ‘Which if I understand it, sir, obliges you to call a court martial?’

  ‘I am not, sir, obliged to do anything and you would do well to remember it.’

  Pearce had been looking at Digby as Jervis responded, and if the man tried to disguise the tightening of his jaw, he failed to do so. What was his game? Was it that he did not relish a court martial now any more than he had previously because he would have to face witnesses who might not back up his contentions? If not that, then it was about laying the ground for something unknown, setting Jervis against him for some future act, which would see John Pearce taken out of his orbit.

  With no time to think it through, Pearce was obliged to go on instinct, hoping the words he used would make Digby uncomfortable. ‘Forgive me, sir, I merely referred to what I supposed to be custom and practice. I must, however, ask when I am supposed to have carried out this act of disobedience.’

  ‘You know very well,’ Digby barked.

  ‘Your superior officer did not give you permission to set out with a raiding party, yet you chose to do so, putting the lives of the men for whom he is responsible in danger.’

  ‘I acted only because the captain was indisposed.’ That got more than a tight jaw; Digby’s eyebrows near hit his hairline, with Pearce speaking quickly before he could verbally be refuted. ‘Since he had not been on deck for many a watch and declined my request that he do so, I could only assume some malady rendered him unable to truly assess the situation.’

  ‘And you could?’ Jervis demanded, as if such a thing was scarce possible.

  ‘I was called on deck by a messenger from the cabin. When what seemed strange became clear, I saw a chance to take action against what I was sure were our nation’s enemies, which is surely the purpose of our cruise.’

  ‘I gave an order not to act, Pearce; you did not heed it.’

  ‘As I have just said, sir, you were in no position to make the kind of judgement I know you to be capable of because you had no visual evidence of what was happening.’

  ‘If I may be allowed, Sir John?’

  Jervis had not stopped glaring at Pearce and, as he swung to look at Nelson, the expression did not moderate in the slightest, which seemed to give the commodore pause.

  ‘Very well,’ the admiral growled.

  ‘I do not infer by my question that you have acted properly, Mr Pearce, but I am curious to know what occurred in and around Voltri.’

  Now there was an interesting question; surely Digby would have implied that nothing had happened. Pearce took Nelson back to the sighting of the lanterns, the fact that he had advised Digby of same, but sought not to make too heavy a point of his refusal to clear for action. He was in the act of saving himself, not ditching his captain, much as the temptation to do so existed.

  It might come to that but it was better to stick to his own story. Nelson sat forward as the tale unfolded, his bright blue eyes alight, making it seem as if he was imagining himself involved, this while Jervis indicated a degree of boredom by going to stand and look out of the casement windows.

  ‘Given the captain seemed to me to be indisposed, I took it upon myself to act.’

  ‘You say you had an exchange of musketry with these villains?’ Nelson asked, after hearing what had happened in the plaza and the scurrying back to the beach.

  ‘I did, sir.’

  ‘That was neither visible from HMS Flirt, nor could we hear anything.’

  Those words from Digby made Pearce’s eyebrows move. What had happened to the fellow so wedded to honesty that he could stand before these three superior officers and tell such a blatant lie?

  ‘But they got away.’ Pearce nodded and referred to their superior numbers, which precluded prevention.

  ‘And you brought your party back to your ship safe and sound.’

  ‘Every man, sir.’

  ‘Which seems to tell me,’ Jervis said, without turning round, ‘that you failed to follow through on your intentions. You went ashore, without orders, to catch and destroy what you assumed to be a French raiding party. At the very least, you should have inflicted casualties, even at the cost of some of your own.’

  ‘Sir, I was obliged to come to an arrangement with the man I assumed to be the captain of La Brune.’

  ‘What kind of arrangement?’

  Digby was smiling now, which told Pearce he knew. It also told him that if he personally enjoyed a degree of regard from the crew of HMS Flirt, it was not universal. Someone had blabbed.

  ‘That he should depart unmolested, as long we were afforded the same courtesy.’

  ‘I dislike what you call a “courtesy”.’

  ‘I had hoped the exchange of fire had been either heard or seen from the deck of HMS Flirt, sir, and that she would have come into view with her guns run out. Even the firing of blue lights would have forced the French to either surrender to me or flee. That lacking, I sought to hold them on the beach till dawn, which would have been fatal to their enterprise.’

  ‘They showed great enterprise, Mr Pearce.’ He looked at Nelson, still sat forward but eyes cast down, with him speaking in a voice that matched his pose. ‘The object of their action was to find and remove from a party of Austrian officers a large sum of money – the equivalent of ten thousand pounds – intended to pay the troops holding the forward defences.’

  ‘And you let them and it go,’ Jervis barked.

  He spun round, his ire no doubt stoked by the loss of what could have been prize money, that is, as long as the Austrians were not alerted to the recovery. So much for coalition allies.

  ‘With respect, sir, how could I have known?’

  ‘The fellow with whom you struck your bargain,’ Nelson interjected, ‘who is as you know skulking in Genoa because he is short-handed, is now using that sum of money to recruit sailors to man his frigate. On the next dark night he could well put to sea and we may lack the means to prevent him.’

  ‘So much for enterprise,’ sighed Jervis.

  Given he was still looking irritated, Pearce had to assume that was his common expression.

  ‘By your action, you have facilitated the needs of our enemies. However, and only God knows why, your superior forgives you for being overkeen to impress, because I am damned if I would, especially in light of the way you came about your rank, which I will have you know I am not alone in deploring.’

  Jervis addressed Digby and asked, in spite of what he had heard, if he still held to his previous opinion, one obviously advanced before Pearce entered the great cabin.

  ‘Magnanimity, indeed. Captain Digby has not asked that you be put before a court but he has agreed with me that you should be subject to a reprimand, in writing, which will, of course, be passed back to the Admiralty and reflect on any future …’ There was a pause, before Jervis added, ‘I was about to say “placement” or “advancement”, but by God I hope you are never in receipt of either.’

  Should he protest and demand a court? To accept was to hand the game to Digby, yet Pearce knew the law to be an unreliable beast – doubly so in the military sense – as had been proved in the trial of Ralph Barclay. It all depended on who sat in judgement; Jervis would decide that and he had just made his feelings plain.

  The least he could expect was what he was being given now, but Jervis had alluded to the manner of his promotion from midshipman to lieutenant. It might have been at the hand of King George but that did not preclude a panel of naval officers, bitterly resenting what had occurred and presented with a chance to reverse it, from taking the opportunity to dismiss him from the service. Not only Digby would win, so would Emily.

  She was receiving again, but this time a family that had moved overnight into a set of apartments in the pensione d’Agastino. It had not been a quiet occupation, as the contents of several carriages were decanted into the various rooms. There was a main parlour and bedroom for Mr and Mrs Wynne, as well as another suite for their two pretty daughters, girls
younger than Emily, one of whom seemed to be in a permanent state of fluttering fright.

  It was incumbent upon Leghorn to welcome them, for they had been displaced from a comfortable existence in Venice, they said, from fear of the French, an outcome much deplored given Mr Wynne, with his weak chest and seemingly even weaker resolve, had realised all his substantial assets at home to move to the warmer climes of Italy, only to find it unsafe.

  In his wife, he had a reasonably practical woman who saw to her charges with no more than a modicum of fuss, though she was grateful indeed to Mrs Barclay, who had attended upon them come morning to see if they required any help to settle in, and who knew enough Italian to ensure the right trunks ended up in the right rooms.

  ‘My dear lady, to trouble you in your condition is unconscionable.’

  A platitude. Emily replied in the only manner she could, ‘It is not so. I carry it easily.’

  Mrs Wynne’s eyes went to the swollen belly, which not even loose garments could now hide, a glance spotted by her girls and one that brought blushes to their cheeks; childbirth, the pains and most of all the causation, was as yet mysterious to the young ladies. Mr Wynne wheezed a trifle before mumbling his own thanks but did not stir from the chair he had occupied with an air of exhaustion.

  Tout les anglais descended on the pensione, not that such amounted to a great deal in numbers, but the arrival of an English family coming overland was rare and a cause for much curiosity. The Udenys came as a couple, the consul husband exceedingly solicitous of the family’s plight, his wife surreptitiously eyeing their possessions and very likely seeking to calculate their value.

  Emily wondered if Consul Udeny was being somewhat over-elaborate in his commiserations, indeed, whether they were really required at all. The Wynnes were obviously wealthy, while they gave the impression of easy panic. No enemy blade had come within one hundred and fifty miles to threaten their flesh, and it was possible to wonder if their ‘flight’ had been necessary, or just the result of a wicked rumour and a degree of cowardice.