A Treacherous Coast

by David Donachie

  ‘Mr Pearce, you have done well.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ came the reply, alongside the feeling that Babbage wanted to add something else but was hesitant, a gap that lasted too long and one Pearce filled. ‘Your own men did much to contribute, as did my friend, Lieutenant Grey.’

  Grey, standing beside Pearce, got a nod. Then Babbage asked the marine to excuse them, which meant he wanted privacy.

  ‘I suggest I check on the cargo.’

  ‘Most useful, Edward,’ Pearce replied, even more curious now.

  ‘I have also come to request a favour. You will have observed that my ship has suffered serious damage?’

  You had to only look over the water to see the truth of that. The broken mast was now cut away and floating free, though there was a boat with a line on it, while on deck Pearce saw a hive of activity as the crew busied themselves in rigging a jury mast and carried out repairs to the quarterdeck.

  ‘I cannot order you to this, but I would ask that you allow me to take this prize into Leghorn.’

  Given he was not going there anyway, that was a request he was only too willing to grant and he said so, adding, ‘As long as Captain Digby has no objection.’

  Babbage was a controlled sort of fellow, so the venom of the response was a surprise. ‘Captain Digby will do as I bid and I will brook no refusal from him. It, sir, falls entirely into the orbit of your good nature.’

  He paused then, with a flicker of a glance at the deck, which showed clear embarrassment. ‘Mr Pearce, I have been one of the many who questioned your right to your rank, for which I now apologise. I have seen how gallant you were today and I assure you that right will never be questioned by me again. And please be certain I shall make known to everyone, including Sir John, that this capture is yours, not mine.’

  ‘We took it jointly, sir, your men and mine.’

  ‘Under your command, and that I will emphasise even if I praise my own.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘No, sir, I thank you, and when my ship is whole again, I hope you will do me the honour of dining with me as my special guest.’

  ‘Nothing would give me greater pleasure,’ he lied. The offer was genuine but dining with tars was apt to require the kind of tale-telling that he found tedious. ‘And may I say how sorry I am for your losses, especially …’

  There was no need to finish; Babbage knew what he meant. ‘Aye, we have lost this day a gallant officer.’

  ‘Sir, since you will be holding burial services, if you would see to my one dead casualty I would be grateful. It would also serve, I think, to take the wounded back to Leghorn.’

  ‘Certainly. Please return with your men to HMS Flirt at your own convenience. I will send over a crew to take charge. Meanwhile, Captain Digby will have to maintain the duty we have alone. Let us hope he does it with more wisdom than he demonstrated to us today.’ Another hesitation, another dropping of the eyes, and the voice when Babbage spoke had a weary quality. ‘The pity is, Mr Pearce, with my mainmast gone, I was unable to signal that he should follow a different course of action.’

  Pearce was unable to respond to that, not that he could for Babbage was heading for the side. He was not speechless but he was surprised, having just been told Digby had acted imprudently.

  ‘Silks, John, bails of the stuff in every colour it is possible to imagine.’ It took time for Pearce to realise that Grey was talking about the cargo. ‘There will be new gowns aplenty for the ladies of Leghorn, your Contessa included.’

  That got Pearce a look of wonder when he blushed.

  There was something even odder about Digby, obvious when he returned to the brig, a tightness to his jaw even more pronounced than hitherto, added to a hundred-mile stare. Babbage had broken a convention when he commented negatively on the actions of his fellow captain. This had Pearce wondering what had passed between them in the short time the senior man had been aboard. It must have been a blast for taking the bait of a prize instead of chasing the others; as always, he could speculate but he would never know.

  It was back to the tedium again, beating to and fro, taking to the boats to argue with the captains of merchant ships. The Americans, even if the language was easy, were the most vehement about not allowing him to board, spouting much about liberty. He agreed with their stance on republican virtue, just as he knew what they were afraid of. The merchant marine of the United States was full of deserters from the Royal Navy, but he could never convince them he had no interest in the crews, only the cargo.

  The combined carpenters of the fleet, aided by the Italians, got HMS Troubadour back to sea in record time, and when she rejoined, it was in the company of Nelson as well as Brilliant and Inconstant. If Pearce was not privy right away to what was imparted to Digby, the sister ships of the squadron were full of gossip and in Liguria it was the main topic of conversation. One of the Turkish vessels, no doubt carrying the fellow who had fired that cannon ordering surrender, had contained in its hold gold specie to the value of six million pounds, repayment of loans from Constantinople to the Genoese bankers.

  ‘Old Nellie is hopping mad,’ was the addendum, which was hardly surprising.

  He was not alone, as every man in the ship could calculate what, even adding the Troubadours, each of them would have gained in coin.

  ‘Rumour doin’ the rounds, John-boy,’ said Michael, as usual in possession of more information than Pearce, ‘is that our captain has got a bad smell to his name.’

  ‘So he should.’

  Having had time to think on it only reinforced Pearce’s opinion that Digby had acted foolishly and Babbage must have told him so, but the upshot was much worse. Due to his inability to see the wood for the trees, he had let slip six million pounds. Surely it was a tale that would get back to England and what would that do for his precious reputation? Had he acted like that because the suggestion had come from Pearce? Did malice extend to blinding a hitherto competent officer to his duty? Whatever, Pearce could summon up no sympathy.

  There was another conundrum: ever since that encounter, Conway seemed to have undergone a change of attitude. While not in any way insubordinate, he was far from the attentive soul his premier had come to expect. In addition, Pearce noticed the crew, hitherto indulgent of the youngster, had begun to make jokes about him and not pleasant ones.

  With his own continuing concerns, he had little time or inclination to worry about such a state of affairs, seeing it as, perhaps, one of those moods young fellows get into, in which they seem to see everything as a chore and become uncommunicative to an alarming degree, this generally due to the alteration from childhood to manhood. It took longer to sense that Michael O’Hagan was hiding something, which for him was more than unusual. Gone was the endemic castigation in joke form by which he reminded his supposed master of their true relationship. He seemed to be a bit on edge and it came to a point when Pearce demanded to be told what he had done to cause upset.

  ‘Holy Mary, why would you be thinking I’m upset?’

  If there had been any doubt, the look of false innocence was very obvious to a man who knew O’Hagan too well to be fooled.

  ‘Are you hiding something?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘For the love of the Christ in whom you place so much faith, be honest. What have I done? It’s not just you, it’s Conway as well. He’s gone from dogging my footsteps to avoiding me, and as for talking, well, he seems to have lost the art entirely.’

  ‘Would I be keeping things from you, now?’

  ‘You have in the past: the drubbing you gave those Bullocks in Leghorn for one, which was laid at my door.’

  ‘Jesus, I was no part of that, it was Charlie. I was too drunk to know what was goin’ on.’

  ‘Well, something is going on now and I want to be told.’

  ‘And what if I’m keeping it from you for your own sake?’

  ‘Emily,’ Pearce exclaimed, his stomach contracting sharply, only to get a shake of the head from O�
�Hagan. ‘The child?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I have other things to be about than standin’ here blathering.’

  That said, O’Hagan was through the canvas, leaving John Pearce none the wiser.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  It was possible to speculate that the arrival of such a large sum of gold and silver in Genoa had an effect on the commanders of the French Army of Italy. Perhaps, because the news of the failure to impede the delivery spread like wildfire, it may even have reached Paris. What would be obvious to all was that specie to the value of six million pounds could not be all the Ligurian bankers had in their vaults; there would be much more. This in turn served to bring into sharp focus that the Po Valley was the richest region of Europe and had been for three hundred years.

  To General Kellermann, in command at Nice, the seizure of the northern regions of Italy would be seen as a military goal, an area in which to contest with the forces of the coalition and defeat them. Yet it was one that would have to wait until the conditions under which the army laboured – lack of supplies being one and the weather another – could be addressed.

  For the recently formed Directory, which had replaced Robespierre’s Committee of Public Safety, there would be another priority and that was the pressing need for money. For a nation in turmoil seeking to survive revolts as far apart as Brittany and the Rhone Valley, with a near worthless currency, the much derided paper assignats, the news of such a delivery could appear to be a lifeline and one that would secure the Revolutionary state they now ruled.

  ‘Gentlemen, the French have acted. They have driven in the Austrian outpost at Loano and we must stir ourselves to ensure they do not have the ability to press home such an assault.’

  With so many officers aboard, ships’ captains, premiers and marines, Nelson had chosen to address the assembly on the main deck of HMS Agamemnon, his cabin lacking the space for such numbers.

  ‘It is unfortunate that the Baron de Vins has chosen at this time to temporarily hand over the command of his forces due to ill health, but his chosen successor, Count Wallis, has assured me he will support any effort we undertake to help check our common enemy.’

  John Pearce, near to the rear of the assembly but tall enough to see the commodore, wondered at the pause then, as well as the look on the Nelson’s face; it implied his thinking did not encompass that de Vins, the most senior general of the coalition armies, should countenance relinquishing his responsibilities at such a critical time.

  ‘Swift action is required and that we can supply. I have determined to use such forces as I have at my disposal to clap a stopper on Monsieur Kellermann’s intentions, by effecting a landing in force behind the enemy advance, which I have been assured our allies will actively support. We have the men to do this without in any way diminishing our abilities as a fighting squadron.’

  Ever the active commander, Nelson was involved in a touch of sophistry there and it had to be deliberate. Sailing a man-o’-war was one thing; to have sufficient men to carry that out while simultaneously fighting an equally powerful enemy was quite another and as for Austrian support, that could be wishful thinking. He was taking a risk and making light of it, but as Dick Farmiloe had pointed out more than once to Pearce, that was the nature of the man.

  In some sense Pearce was only half listening; what would happen was outside his control, men senior to him would make the decisions and his task would be part of the execution. He was still pondering on that which he had learnt from Toby Burns, who had agreed to talk to him as long as Farmiloe was there as a mediator. He had heard the truth of Ralph Barclay’s court martial, keeping hidden the fact that he knew it all already from a fair copy of the transcript.

  As Burns related subsequent events, ones in which his midshipmen peers had seen him as being much favoured in the way of opportunity by Sir William Hotham, it looked to be the opposite to his interrogator. It seemed to John Pearce that the youngster had been endlessly put in harm’s way as a matter of policy and it was not hard to discern why. He knew too much and was also a weak fellow, one it would be foolish to rely on to remain silent.

  Pearce knew now how the correspondence between London and Toby Burns had been corrupted. His attention had naturally wandered from what Nelson was proposing as he thought on Hotham’s dastardly behaviour, as well as that of his clerk. This led naturally to a reflection of what he could do about it, which was interrupted as a murmur ran through the assembly and brought his mind back to the present and what was happening before him.

  ‘Sorry, Dick, what did he say?’

  That got him an odd look from Farmiloe, but also enlightenment. ‘We’re going to cut and seek to hold the road to Loano just beyond Albenga, the object to starve the forward French soldiers of sustenance, which will allow this Count Wallis to counter-attack. The aim is to make them withdraw from Loano and that achieved, we can re-embark.’

  Having been on this coast for three months, Pearce did not need a map to tell him what that entailed. Just east of Albenga the road from Nice to Genoa ran right along the shore. Ships could bombard it and also act as support to men on the ground, ensuring that anyone seeking to dislodge the landing party, from either east or west, would face deadly naval gunfire.

  ‘It seems a splendid plan, John.’

  ‘If it’s so fine a plan, Dick,’ Pearce responded, his voice kept low, for Dick was standing right beside him, ‘why are we not landing soldiers instead of sailors and marines?’

  It was not often Richard Farmiloe looked to openly disagree with Pearce; his expression now indicated that was clearly the case. At its root lay a fault, one to which many engaged in warfare were prone, even someone seemingly sensible like Farmiloe. The attractions of activity often overrode clear thinking. It was happening now and his friend was not alone. A ripple of excitement was animating nearly everyone present but there were exceptions; he was not the only one to display doubt.

  What Nelson was proposing smacked of a degree of desperation, brought on by an inability to get the men who should be doing the fighting to move. Even as a lowly lieutenant, far from the places where tactics were discussed and decisions were made, he could see how tardy the coalition armies were when it came to movement. Their lethargy was a common complaint whenever two naval or marine officers got to together to converse. Nelson was proposing to use what force he could muster to do their job for them. The fleet did not lack the means to transport the Austrians and plant them behind the French advance and, if necessary, more shipping could be found.

  ‘We are short-handed throughout the fleet, Dick. Can we afford the losses this might entail?’

  ‘I would say our commodore is asking us if we can afford to lose Genoa as well as the Alpine passes.’

  Pearce had to admit there was truth in that. Sometimes adventure was the only option based on another factor. When the campaigning season arrived, the aim of the Austrians should be to drive back their enemies and destroy them and that was claimed as the intention. If there was a man in the fleet that believed it, Pearce had yet to meet him. To the coalition armies, holding the enemy in place until their morale cracked seemed their true objective.

  ‘I will now convene with my senior officers in my cabin, gentlemen, and put bones on what I have outlined here.’

  ‘Most of which I seem to have missed,’ Pearce whispered.

  Henry Digby had not lost the habit of talking to himself in private, if anything it had got worse. The only change since the meeting on Agamemnon was his regular presence on the quarterdeck, where outside issuing orders, he tended to brood quietly and alone, standing, chin on chest. If it appeared he was gnawing on some major problem, John Pearce, and probably the entire crew, felt sure it related to his premier.

  When he did spare anyone a glance – Pearce got many when his back was turned, though he was not alone – there was a look in his eye that was unsettling, a sort of unblinking stare that implied the person so singled out had bette
r look to their conduct. It did nothing for the atmosphere and generally relief came when he returned to his cabin.

  The other fellow now acting differently was Digby’s servant: short-handed, the ship could only muster one per officer. He had never been one to say too much to anyone and since the perceived sickness had manifested itself, he had behaved as though nothing was amiss, smiling but remaining silent at what became regular ribbing by the cook’s coppers. Now he had begun to skulk about in a manner not too distant from that of his master, refusing to engage with his shipmates and certainly not, as he had been from the outset, willing to discuss his master and his malady.

  The journey of the squadron to its destination would be a short one and Digby, in an uncommon burst of openness, made it known that he personally would command the landing and subsequent action of his crew. His premier would be going with him and so would Conway, along with a third of the crew, with Pearce reckoning he saw it as a chance to show his mettle to his seniors and perhaps do something to burnish his tarnished reputation. He was also doubtful about his own inclusion.

  ‘I half expected him to leave me behind, Michael.’

  ‘For fear you might steal his thunder?’

  ‘He can have as much of that as he chooses and the lightning as well.’

  ‘At least you know what you’re about, John-boy, and that makes a change.’

  Information about the proposed landing and its objectives had come from Captain Babbage, now with his broken mast repaired and his ship once more in service. He had returned to the squadron and brought back with him Rufus Dommet. He had been lucky: the bullet he took had touched nothing vital, which led to much ribbing from his fellow Pelicans about swinging the lead.