Pearce chose the brightest among the obviously willing, those who dreamt, as all boys do, of endless good fortune. Eyeing them assembled, he wondered how many saw themselves dressed as he was in some rosy future, particularly those enlisted as a captain’s servant. It was an entry point that could see a youngster of the right stamp rise to be a captain and to even fly an admiral’s flag.
‘I will hire boats to fetch you out,’ was addressed to both groups, twenty boys in all. ‘Please ensure your parents send you with everything you will need.’
He was right about one fact: the way news of his need for officers would spread. Within a day he received his first letter begging to be considered for a place and it made depressing reading. The correspondent, a Mr Peat, was a lieutenant of advanced years, the true number of which he was vague about: calculation put him in the second half of his fifties.
He listed the vessels in which he had served, from midshipman to his present rank, gained just prior to the loss of the American Colonies and it was clear he had lacked employment since. He was clearly a fellow lacking in any kind of interest, a senior officer or someone of power able to push his case. With such a gap in experience, there had to be a reason: the recipient, even if he could be sympathetic, was forced to decline the request.
More soon followed, all having written to the Admiralty as well as John Pearce. He was requested to do likewise, in order to enhance their claim for, if the commander of a ship of war could decline an officer, he could not appoint one. It was not just local Medway residents who applied; relatives in Chatham must have written to needy brothers or cousins and advised them of the vacancies. Even more surprising were the letters that came from various worthies, one being from a belted Earl.
In the end, with no personal connections to give him guidance, Pearce chose to back half a dozen applications, writing to the Board of Admiralty with their names. While this was taking place, Oliphant was doing his best to harry Dundas and getting many a rebuke for his temerity. But his persistence, added to a thick skin, paid off. Before the week was out, the matter had been settled with the interlocutor wondering what price Nepean had extracted for compliance.
‘None of your damned business, Oliphant,’ Dundas had barked. ‘Just be satisfied that it is done.’
‘I shall write to Pearce immediately.’
Dundas threw a paper across his desk. ‘These are his mids, who are as we speak on their way to take up their places.’
A look at the names told Oliphant he’d been right. They were not all prefixed with a Mac, but each name seemed redolent of Caledonia.
The line of half a dozen cutters was visible long before it could be established they were heading for HMS Hazard. Every vessel they passed brought forth to the deck an audience to mark their progress. It was when they’d cleared the stern of the last third rate that Pearce, called on deck and away from his ledgers by Michael O’Hagan, could begin to hope that Oliphant’s communication, relating his success, was accurate.
The red-coated Lobsters made up the majority of the first boat and a long glass established there was a marine officer sat in the stern. Casting his telescope over the others, he saw many glum faces, few of them clad in the kind of clothing worn by Jack tars. Indeed, the variety of garments spoke of civilians and not well-heeled ones at that, a fact underlined as they came alongside.
The marines came aboard first, the officer the last to board. Before him Pearce was gifted with a supercilious look under a perfectly white wig, revealed when the hat was lifted both to him and the quarterdeck. In his other hand the marine carried a silver-topped crop with which he struck his lower leg. Pearce thought both the expression and the act lacking in respect.
‘Lieutenant of Marines, George Moberly,’ was imparted with a languid drawl, ‘at your service, sir.’
The formula was rigid and had to be adhered to: he had to introduce himself and issue the required words. ‘Mr Moberly, I bid you welcome aboard HMS Hazard and look forward to our future relationship.’
‘Kind, sir, most kind.’
‘I trust you have been given charge of the others in the boats?’
‘I have, sir, fetched from the very Tower of London. A rum lot, if I may say so.’
‘How many sailors?’
‘Not one. They are quota men, sir, to be made into sailors.’
‘All of them?’ Pearce demanded, failing to keep the jolt out of his voice.
‘Yes, sir. Can I suggest we get them aboard and listed on to the ship’s muster? I would also suggest it would be an idea that they be fed. They have had nothing so far this day.’
There was no choice but to agree, even if it was done with a sinking heart. Already in his mind, he was composing yet another dose of written misery, to send to Portsmouth, only to then decide to wait until he had once more bearded Peter Parker’s opposite number here at the Nore.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
It had taken an age to get to see Admiral Buckner a second time and Pearce’s mood, unhappy to start with, was positively foul when the two came face to face. This time the admiral was sitting down and had declined to see him alone. He had with him and introduced his flag lieutenant, the message being clear; if he was to be insulted again, there would be someone to witness it for some future sanction.
Unknown to Buckner, that suited John Pearce: he required that what he was about to say could not be denied by a claim of failed memory. Not that he was content to rely on a fresh-faced young fellow who owed his place to his superior. He had in his hand a letter, listing the skills in which he was short, none of which were likely to exist in the men he had just entered into Hazard’s muster book.
There would be abilities there yet to be found, but a quota man, supposedly a volunteer, was more often one chosen by his hometown or district from those who posed a burden on the public purse. The act making it compulsory had been enacted to fulfil a requirement promulgated by the government as a way to man an expanding fleet, endemically short-handed. To the municipalities it provided a way to get rid of the inhabitants of the workhouse, men who had fallen into debt and, too often, they would ship out the denizens of the local gaol.
Had the obvious drawbacks of that, which had occurred to him, registered with those who had applied the policy, or was it just another case of Admiralty malice? If the latter, such an action would not serve. It was all very well to forcibly fill a number of vacancies aboard a man-o’-war with such people, but they should not have been sent aboard a ship in which all the necessary specialised duties were uncovered. Without those men, how was he to train the newly recruited in what was a complex artefact?
‘Here in writing, sir, is a list of where I am deficient.’
Buckner harrumphed in a melodramatic fashion. ‘Every ship in the navy is short, Pearce, and, thanks to the lack of diligence of the towns and shire magistrates in putting the required numbers of their people forward, we will want for a remedy. Best get out to sea and solve the lack of experience in your crew by working them. That is the common way, as I can attest from my own past experience.’
Pearce was treated to a list of the ships in which Buckner had sailed, either short-handed or with an inexperienced crew, which he found impossible to interrupt. All he could think of, for this particular flag officer, was the lack of sea time and battle experience he had acquired, a subject much alluded to by Admiral Parker. Buckner, Pearce was told, owed his present posting to his connections, not his abilities.
‘And surely,’ Buckner concluded, ‘they can get you to a place where you can press what you need from incoming merchantmen?’
That was the last thing John Pearce wanted to do: he’d been a victim of the practice himself at sea as well as on land.
‘I suggest that will not do. I have only three men on board who can hand, reef and steer and none of them are topmen, so who is to supervise the setting and working of the sails? Your past experience has no bearing, for my situation is singular.’
That brought Buckner forwa
rd, hands flat on his deck and eyes flashing. ‘You, sir, are singular, most obviously in your utter lack of respect for a superior officer.’
‘I show respect where it is due, sir.’ As Buckner swelled up, he threw the letter on the table to cut off his response. ‘A copy of this has gone to the First Lord of the Treasury, another the Lord Commissioners of the Navy and a third to the Secretary to the Admiralty.’
Bucker shrugged in feigned indifference. ‘That is no concern of mine.’
‘It will be if anything happens to HMS Hazard, and I say that knowing the possibility to be a high one. With such a useless crew she will either become prize to the enemy, or perhaps founder for want of proper seamen to handle her. There will, sir, be an enquiry. I intend not only to survive but to attend it, also to put forward, as proof of professional negligence, the contents of what I have just delivered, dated this very day.’
‘I would order you to weigh immediately if it was within my right to do so.’
‘I thank providence it is not. I bid you good day, Admiral Buckner, with the fond wish that you reflect on the fate of Admiral Byng. You are, I suspect, a mere go-between in this, which has the stink of political game-playing all over it. Those who initiated these acts are concealed now, and I suspect will stay that way, should any censure be threatened. It is usually the case, then, that a sacrificial lamb is required to quiet public anger.’
‘I am secure in my judgement, Lieutenant, and in my friends.’
‘A breed that tend to disappear when trouble in brewing,’ was imparted by Pearce over his shoulder. ‘As you may find to your cost.’
Which did not apply to Michael, Charlie and Rufus. They were waiting for him on the quayside as was the jolly boat. But also, standing by a two-person coach, was Oliphant. Stance and distance made it plain he had no intention of communicating with the Pelicans.
‘You took your time,’ came out as a bark from Pearce, still seething from seeing Buckner.
‘Damn you, Pearce, I have near grovelled to get you what you need.’
‘What we need, I would remind you.’
‘Well, right of this moment, I need your friends to load a casket into your boat.’
‘It does not occur to you to ask them?’
‘Best it comes from you. It’s the funds we requested as necessary for the mission, a goodly sum in gold and of a weight.’
‘Did you sign for it?’
‘I did.’
‘Then Dundas cannot accuse me of misappropriation this time. It will fall to your account if money is not employed as he would wish. And I can tell you from my own experience, he’s damned vague about what that is.’
‘Right now, I need to get it to the ship and it’s too heavy for me to carry on my own.’
‘I wonder which one of my friends will be willing to assist you. I cannot see them inclined to do you any favours.’
‘Order them.’
‘No. I will merely ask.’
In the end, Michael did what was required and with ease; it was not seen as heavy by the Irishman, who bore the small locked casket on one shoulder as if it were canvas. There was silence in the boat as they rowed out to the sloop, Pearce in a brown study and the others, as usual with Oliphant present, were non-communicative. The former was thinking of how to make the mission work, for there could be no refusal to proceed and that depended on getting his tyro crew to a certain level of ability.
If he had looked each man in the eye as they were mustered, asking them as he listed their names what was their civilian occupation and making notes, it had not generated much in the way of hope. He would need to study what he had written with more care, to see if he could glean any clues to what talents they might possess.
On departing to see Buckner he had instructed Moberly to get the men to the various locations where they would live and sleep and to see them properly clad. The haughty marine had looked as if he was about to decline what was a rather menial duty; the glare he got from John Pearce killed that notion. The purser would have been active in his absence, for each man ‘volunteering’ had been in receipt of a five-pound bounty.
They were required to pay for their hammocks, bedding and suitable seagoing clothing and, no doubt, he would be loading them with as much tobacco as he could shift, which had Pearce wonder how much of that bounty they would have left when Porlock had finished hustling them.
He should have read to them the Articles of War immediately, but he saw the need to visit Buckner as taking priority, while occupying his mind was the depth of what they would have to be taught and the list was endless. This took him back to his own first weeks aboard HMS Brilliant and the man doing the teaching.
In his case it had been the bosun, Robert Sykes, a fellow to recall fondly for his care and patience. Memory of him and his actions provided a blueprint by which he would teach his crew their duties. It would be difficult, but it had to be done. He had already reasoned going any distance outside the Thames Estuary was out of the question; the North Sea was too unpredictable. But the calm waters of the river would be a good place to initiate the men into the very basics of their roles.
Back aboard, he wrote to Emily and composed yet another report to Admiral Parker, trying to sound a more positive note as he listed to him the same deficiencies as he’d given Buckner. He would get HMS Hazard to sea and in good shape if it was the last thing he would do. That written, he was then left to wonder how long that would take, which rendered Oliphant’s words, once they were alone in his cabin, extremely unwelcome.
‘Matters in the Pyrenees are deteriorating. Godoy cannot be relied upon to maintain the alliance with Spain and Dundas insists we shift. He wants us off the Catalan coast, not sitting at the Nore.’
‘It’s not possible.’
‘Why ever not, did I not get you a crew?’
The response, heard all over the ship, settled in every mind – bar the grinning Pelicans – that the man under whom they were going to have to serve was a hard-hearted bastard with a foul temper. There were souls, drummed into their present situation, who had already determined to desert at the first opportunity. The yelling imprecations and references to their lack of anything approaching the ability to sail and fight a ship of war did nothing to dent that aim.
Others, given the tales by which they had been rendered fearful, could imagine nothing but being had up at a grating and flogged to a pulp. There was a third type, the sea lawyer and natural troublemaker. By the time they’d been shown how to sling their hammocks and occupy them without being tipped to the deck, everyone knew who the prime candidate was for that role, he being determined they should.
Harry Teach had very near to an old pirate’s identity and it fazed him not that his namesake had ended up with his head on a stake in the Virginia colony. Teach was loud in his low opinion of this noisy tartar of a captain. A finger was poked at the new slops adorning his barrel chest, a firm assertion following.
‘He’ll soon learn his manners when he comes across Harry Teach, mark my word on it.’
He being a squat fellow, with the manners and build of a bully, no one dared to contradict this.
In the cabin, Pearce realised he was abusing the wrong person. ‘What do I gain by blaming you?’
‘A release of exasperation, no more,’ Oliphant replied, seemingly unaffected. ‘But I would ask, for I do have an interest, how you intend to proceed?’
‘First I must address the crew and read to them the Articles of War.’
A raised eyebrow demonstrated that this required explanation, so Pearce provided it in some detail. Said articles covered the behaviour of everyone in the service. How they were to behave in both fighting and ship handling, the punishments for various offences, in a list as long as a man’s arm. It was also stated who had the right to administer the penalties and at what level.
‘So you can’t string someone up from the yardarm?’ was the ironic response, accompanied by a yawn. ‘What a disappointment, I was so looking forward to be
ing witness.’
‘Not legally. But as I hinted before, at sea, there are captains who will interpret their powers very widely. Take keelhauling …’
‘I’d prefer not to, I will gift that to you.’
‘It can be as a good as a death sentence. A body scraped along a ship’s bottom comes back aboard with the kind of lacerations …’
‘Please,’ Oliphant protested, holding up a hand, ‘no more detail. How about flogging?’
‘I’m not in favour and, even if I was, I am confined to two dozen lashes by the articles, unless given permission by a higher authority, though that is rarely withheld. But again, far out at sea, who does a fellow complain to if that is exceeded?’
‘So it is as I thought. Barbarous.’
‘On land as much as at sea, Oliphant. Chastisement by flogging is common to both military and civil society, something my father railed against all his life. And a day in the stocks can be even worse than a lashing.’
‘True. I have never been fond of the practice.’
‘Would that be because you might be a victim?’
‘I decline to be drawn,’ was the composed reply.
‘Enough, I have much work to do sorting out the watches, which will be guesswork to begin with. It will also require much adjustment over time to get the balance right. I suggest you find yourself a berth aft on the orlop deck, where the standing officers reside.’
‘I had hoped for a cabin?’
‘Perhaps, when the junior officers are aboard, you can shift to the wardroom, but such is in their gift, not mine.’
A knock at the door produced one of the new boy servants, to tell him that a boat was about to come alongside with what appeared to be a quartet of young gentlemen aboard. This reminded Oliphant he had the list of names, that being passed over with a comment on their antecedents.
A Close Run Thing Page 18
