‘Can I ask, Sir William, what are your motives for acting to indulge Captain Barclay?’
The answer was a long time in coming and it was preceded by a whole raft of emotions crossing the normally bland face, none of them kindly. ‘He damn near threatened me, Toomey. Can you imagine that, after all I have done for him?’
‘Threatened you, sir?’
Hotham glanced at the slightly open cabin door, aware that he had spoken too loudly. Toomey caught the look and went to close it, thinking of horses and stable doors. That remark might be all over the ship before eight bells so Hotham’s next words were softly delivered.
‘We made him too much aware of our plans for Pearce. He now feels he can make demands on me, which I must tell you, Toomey, I cannot abide.’ The blue eyes were on the clerk now and positively flashing. ‘I seem to recall it was your notion to confide in him.’
‘He is committed to your flag, Sir William, he made a point of telling me so as he departed.’
‘Did he, by damn?’
Being such a confidant and quicker of wit by far, it took no great leap of imagination to work out what had occurred. He had observed Barclay closely in the discussion regarding Pearce’s mission and had seen in him a deep cove who knew when silence served a man best. Surely he had not been so foolish as to openly threaten Hotham? He came across as far too wily for that.
No, it would have been unspoken and left to the admiral’s imagination. But that posed its own problem for an ambitious officer: to openly bait his commander was tantamount to professional suicide. Such speculation was as unsettling as ignorance so Toomey felt he needed a precise answer.
‘Surely Captain Barclay was not overt, sir?’
‘Oh no, it was all very subtle. He’s off chasing his damned wife, of course. Be best if he found her and chucked her overboard tied to a cannonball.’
‘Given the chance of never seeing John Pearce again, they may be reconciled.’
‘I will do for Barclay, Toomey, mark my words. He had my good opinion but that is now forfeit. Write out the orders stripping out his crew. You know which vessels to send them to.’
‘I do, sir.’
It would be the other client officers of Hotham who would benefit. Toomey was quick to reckon it as a ploy, something to mollify them when they saw HMS Semele weigh anchor.
The man who received the order later that day, along with another commanding him to sail for Leghorn, saw its purpose right off. He would write back and protest, of course, but he had no illusions it would do any good. It would, however, do no harm to accept Gherson’s suggestion: to have a fair copy in his locker so that if his ship came to any mischief through lack of the men needed to sail and fight her, he would be able to shift the blame away from himself.
‘Can I suggest, sir,’ Gherson advised, ‘that the copy should be sent over to the flagship for onward transmission to London on the next packet heading for home? It will thus be safe from any chance of destruction.’
‘To whom would I send it?’
‘To your prize agents, sir.’
‘Is that not too obvious?’
‘If it is in amongst other correspondence, crew letters and the like, it will not be noticed. And what can be suspicious about you writing to Ommaney and Druce? Their occupation is no mystery and nor, I suspect, is the fact that you are one of their most cosseted clients.’
As usual with Gherson, Ralph Barclay examined the suggestion for flaws, for he knew his clerk to be a slick fellow. Eventually he nodded and began to write, for this had to be a communication in his own hand. It could hardly be said to be good fortune that in losing an arm he had sacrificed his left, so at least he could still write and legibly.
‘A word to the premier and fetch out the muster roll and any reports from divisional officers, while you study the logs. If we are required to strip out the ship let us make sure we transfer the dregs.’
Tempted to suggest Devenow, Gherson held his tongue. He was present to list the names as the least useful members of the crew were weeded out, added to them men who seemed to cause concern and in one case attract punishment, a quartet of ex-smugglers who were good seamen but troublesome and insubordinate shipmates. That had the captain looking at the list of vessels he was to ship them to.
‘We can get those sods aboard Britannia,’ Barclay snorted, which got him a very odd look from Mr Palmer, his first lieutenant.
‘Send a signal to the various captains. They can carry them in their own boats and once they are off my deck prepare to get to sea.’
‘Am I allowed to say, Captain Barclay, that this leaves us seriously short-handed?’
‘According to Admiral Hotham, Mr Palmer, it merely makes us equal with every other line of battle ship in the fleet.’
When HMS Britannia’s boat came alongside, Cornelius Gherson, under a single seal, slipped two letters addressed to Ommaney and Druce in to the hands of the midshipman in charge: the one discussed with Barclay and also his own communication. If he dealt with his captain’s affairs in relation to his investments he also operated for the prize agents to ensure that the way they handled the Barclay monies was not too closely examined, which allowed them to speculate more than was strictly prudent.
Such a transfer of personnel could not be accomplished without attracting attention, not least from those vessels whose number had not been raised on HMS Semele, the same ships not being in receipt of this gift.
On the deck of HMS Agamemnon Horatio Nelson was standing with Dick Farmiloe, his officer of the watch and now risen to the position of fourth lieutenant. It did not take too long to get the sense of what was happening.
‘I smoke a touch of favouritism, sir. Nothing seems to be coming our way.’
‘I daresay you are right, Mr Farmiloe, but do not let it make you gloomy.’
Nelson produced a large handkerchief, for he was suffering from a cold; indeed when not in such a state he seemed to be prone to afflictions of one sort or another. Only activity cured him and being stuck in San Fiorenzo Bay was not efficacious.
It was far from a secret that he was not Hotham’s favourite subordinate, being a client officer of Lord Hood and much cherished by him in the past. How many times had the fleet watched as Agamemnon weighed to depart on some cruise, one in which Nelson was free to seek opportunities?
‘We are as short on hands as anyone.’
‘True,’ Nelson replied, smiling through a loud sniff. ‘But would we want men who are not Agamemnons? Are we not like King Hal’s happy few at Agincourt, not wishing for any to share our glory? We will do very well as we are.’
If the transfer of hands was a cause for grumbling, the sight of HMS Semele hauling herself over her anchor multiplied that on many a quarterdeck, the most vocal that same HMS Agamemnon, for she had been listed as the next vessel to revictual.
If one or more captains were upset, Ralph Barclay was not. As soon as he cleared Cape Corse, well out of sight of his peers, he gave orders to his master to set a course for Naples, which obliged the premier to ask for confirmation. That got him a cold look from his captain.
‘Please understand, Mr Palmer, that I enjoy the confidence of Admiral Hotham or we would not be at sea at all. Now we want sharp eyes in the tops, do we not, for it would be a damn shame to let opportunity go begging.’
‘Why did you forbear to tell me of this before, John?’
‘I did not wish you to worry and it was something I felt I could deal with on my return.’
‘My husband is close by—’
‘Hardly that, Emily, he is in a Corsican bay and likely to be stuck there.’
‘How can you know that?’
‘The purpose of the fleet demands it. They are there to fight the French, not to pursue private affairs, and that applies to your husband’s ship as much as anyone.’
‘And you do not see it as coincidence that he is in the Mediterranean?’
‘I would admit to you one thing, my wonder as to how he has achieved it
, but that serves little. He has, and if you agree to my suggestion then I would say his being so close is fortuitous. With the Chevalier’s aid I can be with the fleet in a matter of days, wind permitting and, once there – well you know what might be possible.’
‘You cannot believe he will simply allow himself to be persuaded, John. If he has come this far he will scarce desist in his pursuit of me.’
‘I have the means to put pressure on him.’
‘Those court martial papers,’ she sighed. ‘How I now regret stealing them.’
‘How can you say that when they have kept you safe?’
She exploded then. ‘I am not safe and I never will be as long as I am with you.’
‘That, I am bound to protest, is cruel.’
Emily’s shoulders slumped then and Pearce knew, even if he could not see them, the tears had begun to flow. He closed with her and took her in his arms, to sob on his shoulder while he uttered what he thought were meaningless platitudes. Should he tell her that it was not only the court martial papers that might make Barclay hesitate? John Pearce had good grounds to believe he had been party to the conspiracy that had sent him and Henry Digby into such danger on the coast of Dalmatia.
That accepted, Ralph Barclay was a minor player. The real culprit in the matter was Hotham and he intended to put pressure on that sod to ensure that HMS Semele never got close to the Bay of Naples. As Emma Hamilton had said, given time he might dissuade Emily from what he considered an act of pure madness. If he could guarantee she was safe here it would give him a basis with which to argue.
‘All I ask,’ he said, after a while, ‘is to be allowed to try. If I fail, well …’
‘Divorce requires an Act of Parliament.’
Thankfully she was not looking at Pearce when she said that for she would have seen him suddenly discomfited. If he had not actually lied when he intimated that as a way out of their dilemma, Pearce had no illusions as to the possibility of getting a bill of divorce even before the legislature. Besides the sheer amount of effort required there was the cost, which he could not hope to meet.
‘I will not say it will be easy. All I will say is that I will bend my best efforts to it, for it is a case of my heart being broken or kept whole.’
‘And if you fail?’
‘Then I shall seek for some occupation in Frome so that I can be close to you and our child.’
‘Even if I would not wish it so?’
‘You have made it plain how hard it is to command you, Emily. Believe me when I say I will be ten times more tenacious.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
Cole Peabody was far from happy – not that many would have known, given he had been miserable for months now – before he had even been brought aboard HMS Semele as a pressed hand. Prior to coming a cropper he and his mates had enjoyed what they saw as an enviable life.
When in the Low Countries’ port of Gravelines they had money to spend on pleasure, and did so lavishly. Time at sea, while dangerous given they were engaged in cross-Channel smuggling and the excise-used cannons and muskets, tended to be of short duration; once their illicit goods were landed and sold it was home to Ramsgate where Cole was treated as a man of parts.
Life had not been all roses; working for the Tolland brothers, who owned the ship on which they carried their contraband, had never been easy. The older brother Jahleel had a temper to make Old Nick cautious. If his younger sibling Franklin had seemed more sensible he was yet a fellow of whom to be wary. Not that he held either in regard now: the pair had abandoned Cole and his mates to the press, no doubt buying themselves off HMS York, a receiving hulk into which John Pearce had dumped them all.
‘Can’t be worse than what we had, Cole.’
‘Who knows, Cephas? You was flogged on a whim by that sod Barclay and who’s to say where we’s going won’t be worse?’
Over the months since they had been sent from the hulk, Peabody had come to exert a semblance of control over his equally unfortunate mates. Cephas Danvers, Fred Brewer and Dan Holder were, like him, ruffians and they looked and acted it. They had held themselves apart from the rest of the crew of Semele as being of a different stamp to men they saw as dupes. What fool would sign up for the King and a pittance when they could be free spirits and rake in money by running smuggled goods?
Even men forced to serve, and there were a number aboard the seventy-four, they disdained as too low to consort with. Only a chump would allow himself to be taken up by the press, a fact known to the whole quartet, who had spent their lives either avoiding such gangs or when they could not do so, fighting them to a standstill with knives and clubs to remain free.
They knew themselves to be hard bargains and behaved like it. They would have been pleased to know that the men watching them over the side were glad to see their backs, for they had been nothing but trouble to the lower deck as long as they had slung their hammocks there. Their divisional officer was likewise relieved; it would have been hard to admit the truth to anyone, but he had been cautious of men he reckoned were no strangers to dark deeds and he knew he should have been harder on them.
‘That ship we’re headed to has an admiral’s flag aloft, Cole, do you note that?’
‘So it has, Fred,’ Cole replied looking up, before calling to one of the oarsmen. ‘What’s the name of the barky, mate?’
‘Britannia,’ came the whispered reply as the mid in charge of the cutter, young and fresh-faced, loudly called for them to be silent.
‘Happen that nipper might need a midnight swim,’ opined Danvers.
‘Belay that talking there or your first sight of the flagship will be a grating.’
‘Beggin’ your indulgence, young sir,’ Cole called, ‘we’s new to your ways.’
‘By damn you’ll learn soon enough.’
‘And so might you, baby face,’ Cole whispered to himself.
A lieutenant was waiting to list them in the muster book and to assign them to individual mess tables but that did not hold. A word here and there, plus the odd threat, soon got them messing together as a group. Their table was hard by the lower deck 32-pounder cannon that they would work in battle. Following on from that, the next task was to so intimidate the other members who shared their mess as to ensure that most of the mundane duties required to be carried out fell on them.
A ship of the line that had been at sea for two years was a settled place; the wardroom officers knew their compatriots’ foibles and had learnt to live with those they found annoying. On the lower decks there had been jockeying when first assembled, sometimes coming to blows but those too had long been resolved; a new draft revived old problems and none more than a quartet so clannish and determined.
‘There’s one or two eyeing us up to put us in our place.’
Cephas said that to three lowered heads as the four conversed in undertones. What he was relating they expected; a first rate, supposed to have an eight hundred strong crew, had its hierarchy on the lower deck and some of them would not take kindly to the notion of the ex-smugglers muscling in.
There were two ways to deal with such a problem: by handing out a good hiding to the top dogs or, and this Cole favoured, by never upsetting them and pointing out that they were prepared to fight their corner, so harmony served everyone best, for bloodshed was certain.
‘Had words with some,’ added Brewer. ‘No chance of coin in this bugger lest we bring John Crapaud’s fleet to a contest.’
‘You might get more’n coin if that occurs, Fred, you might get a bit of round shot up your arse.’
‘Only happen if he was running away, Cole.’
‘Which, Cephas, we must set our mind to do first chance presented. This is a new berth and they knows us not well. Word is we goes regular to Leghorn for victuals.’
‘Where in the name of Christ is Leghorn?’ Dan Holder asked.
‘How would I know?’
‘We’s a long way from home, of that I is certain.’
‘Its land, mate. Put m
y feet on good earth and I’ll find a way to my hearth, even if we ’as a rate of miles to cover.’
That did not produce much in the way of enthusiasm, even if it had been a constant theme ever since their misfortune at Buckler’s Hard, where Pearce had outfoxed the Tollands and taken them prisoner. They had vowed to desert at the first opportunity, only such a thing never occurred. Ralph Barclay had been a mean sod with liberty even to those he trusted, and they were few. The chances of these four ever getting ashore on leave had been nil.
Added to that they had missed out on the prize money paid out for the First of June battle, which had lined the purse of every man on the seventy-four from the great cabin to the meanest nipper, and that rankled. Fate was a cruel mistress, as Cole Peabody had seen the need to constantly remind them.
‘An’ she has set us on the ship with not a pot to piss in.’
That led to talk of bloody revenge on the Tolland brothers for dragging them into this situation in the first place and then leaving them to their fate, braggadocio and distance allowing them to forget that they had lived in mortal fear of Jahleel. Even that paled when the name John Pearce was mentioned; if the Tollands would shed his blood, these men intended – should they ever meet Pearce again – to skin him alive and then burn what was still breathing.
‘Pity, seems to me,’ Cole would remind them, hissing through lips lacking in teeth. ‘There’s as much chance of coming across that bastard as a pig flying to the masthead on its own fart.’
‘They says God provides, Cole.’
‘Not any one we worship, Dan.’
There being a constant stream of coastal traffic between Naples and the other ports of Italy, finding a vessel to take him to Leghorn posed no problem for John Pearce. From there he could get aboard any of the ships sent for revictualling and thus on their return back to San Fiorenzo Bay. The tiny cabin he got on the trader was filthy, which annoyed him, he now being accustomed to the cleanliness of a British warship, but he comforted himself that it would not be a journey of long duration.
The Perils of Command Page 7
