Coming upon the privateers’ basin John Pearce eyed the berthed vessels with something approaching professional appreciation. Sizes and shapes varied but all the ships were sleek, well maintained, armed with sufficient weaponry and looked to be fast on a bowline. Yet there was no profit in being tied up to a quayside; the making of money was done at sea.
So he had to assume that if their captains and crews were in port it was due to success not idleness, spending what they had gained by their licensed piracy, a truth brought home when, passing under a painted board that named the establishment as the Golden Hind, he entered a tavern that in its layout – low-beamed ceiling and smoke-stained walls – could have existed in the London docks.
The babble of talk died as he came through the door; naval officers were rare in such places and not welcome, judging by the reaction, for they were generally in pursuit of deserters. He returned their stares, some being glares, with a set face, before finding a rough wooden table at which he could sit.
A serving wench was by his side immediately to place on his board a pitcher of wine, a bowl of olives and some bread. The notion of coming to this place had not fashioned a way to proceed, which left him at a stand, especially when those present chose to ignore him and go back to their own murmured exchanges.
John Pearce had been a solitary presence in a strange setting many times in his life. Had he not entered the Pelican Tavern in much the same manner as he had come to this place, albeit on a foul night? Having been on the wing more than once in his life gave him a steadiness in such an impasse that few could match, as well as a devil-may-care way of acting when no other method presented itself.
‘My name is Lieutenant John Pearce. Is that known to any of you?’
The loud question stilled the voices for a second time and this lasted longer as he was carefully examined. Finally, one fellow stood up and, picking up his own cup of wine, came to sit opposite him. Examining this new companion Pearce was wont to think him a caricature for he matched in almost every way the depictions often seen in the London playhouses of old buccaneers like Henry Morgan and Edward Teach.
His black hair was oiled and arranged in ringlets, some of the lower curls decorated with ribbons. He had a thin but substantial moustache and sharp features though he was far from ugly, quite the reverse, and that handsomeness was enhanced when he smiled. Indeed Pearce thought he was a fellow who would not struggle at all with the fair sex.
‘So you are the infamous Pearce. Have you come to join yonder merry band?’
‘Why would I wish to do that, sir?’
‘Come, sir, your credentials are perfect.’
‘You have my name, but I lack—’
The head tipped a fraction, to which was added a wry smile. ‘Oliver Senyard, at your service.’
‘Owner of one of the vessels I passed?’
‘Lord no, sir, I am a trader. I cannot abide the sea, which apart from rendering me sick as soon as I leave harbour has a strong inclination to remove me from this life when on water and that is before you come across some cove who would dearly like to slit your gullet. Let others take such a risk, I am the fellow who trades their captures, quite a quantity of it sold to your own service.’
‘You deal with Captain Urquhart?’
‘I have that misfortune, yes, but the navy pays well for stores seized from privateer successes.’
‘Can I say your appearance does not match your occupation?’
Senyard grinned. ‘In a piratical setting, sir, it serves to look the part.’
‘If I were to indulge you with some more wine, sir, perhaps you will tell me why my name is so well known and even more to the point, why you use a word like infamous?’
‘Come, sir, that needs no words from me.’
‘I fear it does, Mr Senyard, for I am at a true stand.’
Ralph Barclay was rowed ashore wearing his best blue coat and hat to be much impressed by what lay before him. The Bay of Naples was famous throughout the world for its beauty as well as the ever-present menace of Vesuvius with its cone smoking to the south, benign-looking at present but with no one knowing when that would alter and it would suddenly erupt.
At a distance the shoreline properties, including the royal palace, looked very fine, while a military eye naturally took in the forts that protected the town and the various harbours dotted along the shoreline: one for the Neapolitan Navy, another for trading vessels and any number of tiny moles to protect the fishing fleet from the sudden squalls common in the Tyrrhenian Sea.
Such an idyll did not survive proximity; close to the buildings, the Palazzo Reale apart, showed much wear and tear, many bordering on neglect, while the smell – not an unusual one for a port, made up of rotting fish and vegetation, added to human waste – seemed to have more power than most. Yet there were occasional wafts of something sweeter, for there was a mass of colourful flora both on the balconies and in the hills behind.
Dropping his gaze Barclay cast an eye over the crew of his barge. Being wealthy he had outfitted them in a manner he thought appropriate to his dignity. Every oarsman had a hat with a bright-red ribbon, a short blue jacket with brass buttons, this over a cambric shirt. All wore matching bright-red bandanas, clean white ducks, and by their feet as they worked the sticks a pair of patent leather shoes to be put on as they accompanied him ashore. There were two marines along and they would guard the barge while it was tied up.
The saluting had taken place at first light, HMS Semele acknowledging the royal standard and the locals replying to his own flags, not least that of Vice Admiral Hotham. His departure from the ship had been noted so there were dignitaries on the quay waiting to welcome him, which they did as soon as Devenow, leaping on to the solid surface first, reached down a hand to aid Barclay up the short ladder.
‘Be quick about your business, Gherson,’ were the last words the captain said as he ascended.
The clerk ignored an injunction made too many times already. He had a decent purse in his coat pocket and that he padded to reassure himself, which occasioned a discreet smile for he reckoned not to disburse it but to keep the contents. Gherson hoped Ralph Barclay had shown his naïvety when he had handed it over.
What good would it do to seek an interpreter and question Italians regarding Emily Barclay? If she was in Naples the people who would be aware of her presence would be English and there had to be a rate of his countrymen in such a busy trading port.
It was also common knowledge that many a rich traveller from home landed up here, usually in search of antiquities from Pompeii and Herculaneum with which to return home and decorate their mansions and country piles. Having been an avid reader of popular journals in London – wishing himself to be rich he was eager to hear of the exploits of those he intended to emulate – Gherson knew of Ambassador Hamilton.
And he had seen him once, he was sure, at an exhibition held at the Duke of Richmond’s gallery in Whitehall, where those in possession of ancient artefacts had been persuaded to display their trophies, Hamilton being but one of many. But he was more than that, and his position gave him a unique ability to indulge his interest.
The man was an avid seeker of antiquities and he was known to regularly dig at the appropriate sites. Hamilton had unearthed so many treasures that he could show off his own finds at the Royal Academy and fill the space provided, to be greeted with much acclaim and not a little envy, but the real point was different. He would be called upon by other collectors visiting Naples, and people who looked for beauty in ancient art would likely not miss it in a comely young woman.
Watching as pleasantries were exchanged with the Neapolitan naval officers, Gherson’s eye was taken by a striking-looking woman, a redhead under a parasol, in the background. Standing with her was a tall, slim man, older but with the air of a natural patrician, who stepped forward once the official greetings were completed to introduce himself. Having seen him sketched in those journals the clerk had little doubt as to their identity.
&
nbsp; ‘Allow me to welcome you as our nation’s ambassador to the Kingdom of Naples. Sir William Hamilton, at your service.’
The ambassador executed a slight bow as Barclay replied, and in doing so exposed to an even clearer view the notorious lady who must be his wife. Painted many times by Romney, hers was an image known to him as well. She was striking enough still to hold his gaze but why did she react so to the words she then overheard?
‘Captain Ralph Barclay, Sir William, of His Britannic Majesty’s Third Rate HMS Semele. I bear for you letters from my commanding admiral, Sir William Hotham.’
‘No longer Lord Hood?’
‘No sir, Admiral Hotham has the honour to now hold the command.’
‘Then I must send my congratulations to a man I consider an old acquaintance.’
Lady Hamilton stepped forward, her expression concerned, to tug at her husband’s sleeve and whisper in his ear as he canted his head to listen. Fixated, Gherson looked for a reaction from the old man but his face remained a mask, immobile if you excluded an occasional minimal nod, until finally he looked at Ralph Barclay and smiled.
‘You are, of course, invited to be my guest at the Palazzo Sessa.’ If Emma Hamilton was agitated before she was even more so now as her spouse continued in his even tone. ‘Naturally, my wife will go ahead to prepare while you and I take a turn round some of the more entertaining sights.’
‘At your service, sir,’ Barclay replied.
He said this before catching sight of Gherson. He had looked at the buildings lining the quay, none of them warranting the description of entertaining. The glare he aimed at his clerk was one to ask what the devil he was still doing standing there.
‘The churches are particularly fine,’ the ambassador added. ‘The remaining Norman examples make one feel perfectly at home.’
As he moved away Gherson heard Barclay’s response and, knowing him as well as he did, recognised the manufactured quality of his enthusiasm; he was not a man for places of worship but manners left him no option but to oblige.
‘And as we walk, sir, you can tell me of Admiral Hotham, whom I have met at a royal levee but only when he held the rank of captain, so it is some time past.’
‘A fine officer, sir, and the very best produced by the service.’
‘As has always been said of him.’
Emma Hamilton was gone, moving towards her open coach at what seemed a rather forced pace, one observed by Gherson but not Ralph Barclay. The temptation to tell his employer what he surmised was strong, but then a few hours of ignorance would do Barclay no harm and him some good. To be ashore was a blessing in itself; to have coin to freely spend was even better and Naples must be blessed with some very fine houses of pleasure, manna to a fellow who had been too long at sea for his own comfort.
There was a comical element to the way the barge crew, now fully shod, fell in behind the ambassador, their captain and the ever-watchful Devenow, spruced up like them for the occasion. They were unused to marching and even more discomfited by the leisurely pace of the pair they were now escorting.
Barclay, with his back to them, could not see it and he would have had an apoplexy if he had; far from enhancing his dignity their swaying gait and stumbling walk was attracting smiles and laughs from the locals.
John Pearce listened to Oliver Senyard with increasing incredulity; what he was being told would certainly be justified in blackening his name if it were true. But it was utterly false, which left him wondering: if he was not at fault, who was? There had certainly been a serious breach of the peace and, by the account he was hearing, great physical harm done.
He cast his mind back to the last time he had been in Leghorn, not to rehash any of the unfortunate events he had experienced but for a more general appreciation of what had been happening in the port at the time. The ships that had been present included HMS Leander, in which Henry Digby had been second lieutenant, with that piece of ordure Taberly as his premier.
According to Digby, Taberly was the person who really ran the ship for both served under an indolent captain. He was certainly a man to only allow shore leave to officers and warrants, keeping hands on the ship and letting the pleasures of the port come out to them. The other line of battle ship present had been Agamemnon, accompanied by a trio of frigates and that as a case was chalk and cheese.
Nelson was known throughout the fleet, and condemned by some as being too soft, too indulgent of his whole crew, none more so than his midshipmen. He was strong on the notion that granting shore leave was a good thing, easy for him to advance with a wholly volunteer crew raised in the main from his home county of Norfolk, the rest being old hands who had served under him previously.
Not that such knowledge provided any clues. Meanwhile he had this privateer factotum sat opposite him clearly not prepared, any more than Urquhart had been, to buy his claims of ignorance. The sounds of cannon fire turned both their heads to the doorway and Pearce recognised what had now become familiar: signal guns wasting powder as a vessel coming in saluted the port and the old bastion on the shoreline replied.
‘Mr Senyard, I thank you for your company and the way you have enlightened me.’
That got a jaundiced look as the man replied. ‘If you’re ever stuck for a berth seek me out, Mr Pearce. Those I deal with can always use a man aboard who knows how to sail a ship and is not afraid to act the brigand and will pay a bounty for enrolment.’
Wanting to tell him where to stick such an offer, Pearce just forced out a smile, lifted his hat and walked out of the door, aware that every eye was once more upon him. He was on the quay when he recognised the vessel coming in as HMS Agamemnon.
CHAPTER NINE
If Emily Barclay was all frozen shock, then her hostess was the exact opposite. Emma Hamilton was good in a crisis; so, normally, was her guest but not one of this kind.
‘My husband, here?’
‘I’ve sent to the servants’ quarters for those fellows Mr Pearce left behind and I have ordered a shay to carry you to a small beach residence my husband keeps for his sea bathing. That will not serve for long but it will do so in an emergency. Now, Emily, I suggest you pack some clothing for a brief stay there.’
‘Do you believe in fate?’
‘I believe, Emily, I have a duty to protect you.’
‘There is not just me,’ Emily replied, a hand going to her still flat belly.
‘You are with child, I know.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I am, like you, a woman and what’s more one who has borne a child. I am no stranger to the signs.’
‘You have had a child?’
‘In another life!’ Emma Hamilton snapped as Michael O’Hagan appeared at the door of the suite of rooms Emily had occupied. The swift explanation of what had occurred and the proposed solution had the Irishman crossing himself and getting a less than wholeheartedly pious response from the ambassador’s wife.
‘Prayer will not serve our needs, haste will. The Chevalier is at present keeping Captain Barclay amused by visiting churches and the like, but he will then bring him to the palazzo. None of you must be here, for the mere sight will tell him all.’
‘Perhaps I should stay and face him,’ Emily interjected softly.
‘In God’s name why, when you have spent so much time running away?’
‘I told John of my intention to return to him, for the sake of the child. If my husband will accept it as his own it will not be tainted for life.’
‘Holy mother of Christ,’ came from O’Hagan, more of a sigh than an exclamation.
‘Which the man who is the father is seeking to alter.’ Seeing the reaction forced Emma Hamilton to own up to the conversation they had prior to his departure.
‘He seems to have told you, Lady Hamilton, a great deal regarding our affairs.’
There was no escaping the tone of pique, nor was there any doubt of Emily’s annoyance for it was evident on her pinched face and sharply dilated nostrils.
&nb
sp; ‘He confided in me his concerns, yes, and why? Because he wishes to rescue you from a life of misery.’
‘He cannot be certain it will be so.’
Emily hesitated then; did she really want to state her reasoning: that with a husband serving in the navy she might not be burdened much with his presence? There was a very distinct possibility of his being at sea more than he was at home, some commissions lasting years, even in peacetime. That in Frome she would be surrounded by her own family and friends, which would serve to make what could be intolerable bearable. That an occasional submission to her brutish husband’s needs was a small price to pay to avoid the taint of bastardy for her child.
Lady Hamilton gave up on Emily and addressed the Irishman, still in the doorway and hat in hand. ‘Your name is Michael, I recall; can you reason with her?’
‘Only to say, Mrs Barclay, that you stand to break John-boy’s heart. That I do know. He came from the other side of Italy for he could not wait to see you, when he might be sailing by this place in a couple of weeks. Sure, that speaks of something more than fondness.’
‘While I would hazard,’ their hostess added forcefully, ‘that he will not give you up easily.’
That hit home and had Emily biting her lip; it brought back to her the words of her lover, the promise that he would no more let her be than Ralph Barclay. A vision of his stalking her in the streets of her hometown made her shudder.
‘Sure, it would please me,’ Michael added, ‘if you was to consider for a bit.’
That led to silence and Emily considered her options until finally she spoke. ‘I will go with you, Michael, to where Lady Hamilton has directed us. But, milady, I do ask this: that should I wish to confront my husband in order to make up my mind, it will be in your presence.’
The Perils of Command Page 9
