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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Serie: John Pearce
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012
Pressed into King George's Navy for the second time in a month, John Pearce and his comrades, the so-called Pelicans, find themselves working aboard HMS Griffin, a slow and over-crowded ship, sailing the Channel in search of the numerous French privateers that prey on English merchant shipping: her task to stop them and, if possible, to capture or destroy them. But Pearce has greater things on his mind: he must rescue his ailing father from the dangers of revolutionary Paris, and to do that he must somehow leave the ship. He does so with the help of Benjamin Colbourne, the captain aboard Griffin, a man with a subtle mind, who finds a way to both meet his needs and make it appear to the Pelicans that their leader has deserted them. Arriving too late to save his father from the guillotine, Pearce is left with no choice but return to the Griffin to put right the appearance of betrayal with which he left, and to learn his sea-going trade in order to exact revenge.
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Seitenzahl: 553
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PRAISE FOR DAVID DONACHIE’S JOHN PEARCE SERIES
‘Using a clever blend of fact and fiction, Donachie leads his readers through the seamy side of life in the 1790s, and with graphic imagery he spins a rollicking yarn of boldness and redemption’Good Book Guide
‘The various strands…intertwine satisfactorily and help to keep up the tension…Donachie also succeeds admirably in the difficult job of getting across the political complexities of the time without resorting to lecturing’Historical Novels Review
‘High adventure and detection; cunningly spliced battle scenes which reek of blood and brine; excitements on terra firma to match’Literary Review
‘A must for armchair mariners… It’s superb stuff’Manchester Evening News
‘Vivid and accurate shipboard action… Compulsively readable’Cambridge Evening News
A Shot Rolling Ship
DAVID DONACHIE
To the memory of Mick Jailler
A good friend who showed in life a level of bravery and tenacity that few could match. He also tried very hard, yet failed, to hide his generosity.
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
‘Welcome to hell, brother.’
The voice under the thick felt hat was gruff, neither friendly nor unfriendly, the face the colour of mahogany, pitted, lined and weary looking, the eyes deep pools of brown. It stood out from the rest of the ship’s crew only because it was close to a lantern, so that all the others present were but seated shadows, eyes in the gloom, sizing up a newcomer. ‘Happen there are those who told you Old Nick’s lair was hot and reeks of brimstone. It ain’t, friend. It goes by the name of Griffin, and it be cold, damp and the smell is of bilge and rotten timber.’
A voice from the gloom added his opinion. ‘Pressing this lot ain’t goin’ to make it smell any better.’
John Pearce, half crouching, lowered the canvas sack that contained all his worldly possessions, the homicidal fury he had felt on coming aboard subsiding into a cold anger. That was underscored by a deep feeling of powerlessness, the natural state of mind for a man ensnared for the second time in a matter of weeks by the tentacles of King George’s Navy. How could he get out of this? He had to get off this ship, but there seemed no way of doing so short of chucking himself into the sea and that would only lead to recapture unless, and just as likely, he drowned in the cold grey waters of the English Channel.
The sounds above his head were of a ship getting under way; shouts as sails were sheeted home, the groan of strained timbers, the creak of the cables that controlled the rudder. A sudden lurch as HMS Griffin, out of the lee created by the much larger East Indiaman, dropped sideways off the crest of a wave. That forced him to grab hold of a ladder rung, his muscles tensed as the bows hit another wave, sending a shiver through the entire frame. This was happening on a relatively calm sea, which made Pearce wonder what it would be like to be aboard in rough water. He had to acknowledge one speaker, the fellow in the felt hat, to be right about the smell, except he had left out the stench of packed and unwashed humanity, hardly surprising given the lack of space. Pearce had to crouch just to avoid clouting his head on the deck beams: even if the mass of bodies prevented him from seeing the exact dimensions of his new home, he knew it to be tiny. The deck he had crossed on coming aboard was that, no more than twenty stretched paces bow to stern, and less than half that dimension in the beam; what lay beneath could not be greater.
‘Are you to move on, John boy, or are you wishing to leave us to freeze on this here ladder.’
Michael O’Hagan’s Irish brogue was muffled because he was still standing upright in the well of the hatchway, through which ran a wide, thick-runged ladder. Behind him the others pressed out of the Lady Harrington would be on deck, no doubt watching, as Pearce himself had done moments before, that spacious and steady merchant ship sailing away towards the easily visible southern shore of England.
‘Aside there, let me pass.’
The voice was that of Lieutenant Benjamin Colbourne, the man who had just pressed them, sharp and commanding. Rufus Dommet was the one who answered, the shrill voice evidence of both his youth and perhaps a degree of nervousness. ‘There’s no room to pass.’
‘Shift I say.’
‘But…’
‘Silence. You are new aboard, man, and I forgive this once, such a response as being due to ignorance, but do not in future address me with such familiarity, and do not leave out an acknowledgment of my rank, or I will be obliged to discipline you.’
From somewhere in the darkest recesses of the deck came the sound of a loud and derisory mouth-made fart. John Pearce edged forward towards that raspberry and the men before him, by standing and moving back the barrels on which they had been seated, cleared a space. Michael O’Hagan joined him, even more stooped because of his greater height, mouthing a quiet, ‘Mother of Jesus’, as he realised how cramped it was. Behind Michael came Charlie Taverner, still confused, that state of mind rendering the normally voluble Londoner silent.
He was bustled to one side as the blue-coated officer squeezed by. ‘Move back there, make some space.’
The mahogany face spoke again. ‘Can’t make what ain’t there, your honour, ’cepting we stove out some of the scantlings.’
‘Belay that, Latimer.’
If Lieutenant Colbourne was made angry by the interjection, a vocal complaint from what appeared to be a common seaman, he did not show it – the response had no animosity, more a weariness born of habit. Instead he turned and commanded the other pressed men still on the deck to come below, which required him to push even more to squeeze them in. He then raised himself onto the lowest rung on the ladder so that he, bent forward, could address an assembly crammed so tight it seemed that only the bodies held each other against the pitch and roll of the ship, and that was with a quantity of the crew absent, for there were men on the deck still, sailing the ship.
‘Get your sodding dunnage out of my mouth.’
Charlie Taverner, the guilty party, who still had his ditty bag slung over his shoulder, reacted sharply. ‘Happen I would rather leave it gob stoppin’ than smell your breath, mate.’
‘You’ll be smelling your own blood, cheeky bugger.’
‘Silence.’
John Pearce examined Colbourne closely as he issued that stricture, expressed in an absent-minded fashion while he was occupied, simultaneously riffling the pages of a book. On the deck of the Lady Harrington the man, as tall as John Pearce, though thin, had looked imposing, but after only a few weeks as an enforced sailor Pearce knew that the uniform had some bearing on that. The lieutenant looked less impressive now – hardly surprising given that with a book held up to his face, and an arm hooked round the ladder upright, he was forced to speak from a position forced on him by the lack of headroom, one that robbed him of all dignity.
‘By the power vested in me by those executing the office of Lord High Admiral, it is my duty to acquaint you with those statutes so laid down by them to govern the behaviour of the officers and men of His Majesty’s ship at sea…’
The voice became a drone in the background, partly for the fact that John Pearce had heard the words before, but just as much because of the dull way that Colbourne recited them. It hardly seemed possible that not much more than an hour before he had been discussing how to get ashore on the Kent coast in a way that would allow him to evade notice. Every fibre of his being longed for that; it had since he had been, three and half weeks previously, illegally and violently taken up and pressed for the first time.
The image of that night came easily, as did remembrance of the Pelican tavern, hard by the River Thames, tucked in the Liberties of the Savoy, a warren of streets and alleys where minor felons and debtors could live without fear of bailiffs and tipstaffs. Sought by him as a refuge from pursuit by a more powerful law, it had been full of humanity, smoke, laughter and argument, all perfectly normal until the door burst open and the Navy arrived in force, with cudgels and purpose, rudely interrupting his cagey conversation with a quartet of impecunious strangers who made their living on the riverbank. It had led to sudden mayhem and a near escape, but he had not evaded the press gang; instead he had experienced capture and received, at the end of a knotted rope, his first taste of naval discipline.
The course of his life had changed in that moment, his only desire to get away and to do so without attracting attention. To get ashore discreetly was essential, for he suspected there was a King’s Bench warrant out for his arrest. Obstacles to that aim had been numerous ever since he was taken up, yet he had somehow overcome them all to gain his freedom, but now, having fallen foul at the very last hurdle, he must start all over again. He looked around at the dimly lit faces of his new shipmates, at least those he could see. They ranged from the very young and open, of seamen who were little more than boys, to the man who had spoken to them first, a gnarled veteran who had clearly spent years at sea.
There would certainly be people in this tub that would seek to stop him deserting; he had learned in the last few weeks that a proper sailor’s attitude to a pressed landsman rarely included much in the way of sympathy. The best he could hope for was indifference, a stance that would have men look the other way at matters which they thought to be none of their concern. One or two might be positively compassionate, but to balance them, in any group, there were bound to be those who would interfere from natural malice – men who hated to see others make a gain not vouchsafed to themselves – and that took no account of those with warrants and petty ranks, keen to protect their little shards of authority.
Such a thing did not apply to Lieutenant Colbourne; he was a known quantity. Having gone to the trouble of pressing them out of a passing merchantman, the ship’s captain could be guaranteed to do everything in his power to keep Pearce aboard, so the nature of the man was of serious concern. The officer who had first pressed him, and given him that welcoming clout with a knotted rope, had been a black-hearted tyrant called Ralph Barclay. Was Colbourne the same? Was he as watchful, as keen to see his inferior officers use their fists, a starter, or the lash to maintain authority?
Chance had allowed him to outmanoeuvre Barclay and regain his freedom; could he do the same to Colbourne? What of the ship, this HMS Griffin; where would she sail, what were her duties? She had come up upon the Lady Harrington close to the South Kent shore, in soundings as Colbourne had insisted, a fact that seemingly gave him the right to press seamen from any merchant vessel he encountered. Did her duty keep her in such proximity to the coast or would she be sailing into deeper water? Soundings. The word had a funereal ring to it, a death knell of hope. A lead line cast into John Pearce’s soul not twenty minutes ago would have touched bottom quickly when he realised what was about to happen, realised that, in the end it was Ralph Barclay who had humbugged him and not the other way round; as he had contemplated his options, he was in near despair. That, he knew, was a useless emotion and it was not in his character to dwell in the slough of despond. Now, every nerve end was alive, his eyes and ears acute for any clue that would aid his cause. He would get off this ship or die in the attempt.
‘Article Four. No man shall have carnal knowledge of any beast carried in His Majesty’s vessels on pain of death…’
‘He has a right way with a jest,’ whispered O’Hagan, ‘with no room here to swing a dead chicken. Sure he’s fit for the fairground tent. If he was to lay out his hat I’d toss him a sixpence.’
Pearce felt himself smile, which made him realise how tightly clenched had been his jaw. It might be involuntary and the joke feeble, but it eased the angry tension and he was grateful for the release to a man who, in only a matter of days, had become a close friend. That was Michael’s way, to see humour in every situation no matter how desperate. Besides that he had a great flair for deflating those who sought to command him, as well as the ability, gifted as he was with height and strength, to stand toe to toe with any man who thought himself cock-of-the-walk. He had faults, all men do, and was bellicose when drunk, the state in which Pearce had first seen him, but if there was anyone he would want by his shoulder when trouble threatened, Michael was that man.
The words being mouthed by Colbourne were no joke. Articles of War they called them, those Lord High Admirals; articles of death more like, given the number of offences that attracted such a penalty. Ideas raced through John Pearce’s mind, split-second scenarios; a long swim if they ever got close enough to shore, the theft of a boat, or, given that he had money hidden in his ditty bag, a bribe to some of the crew to aid him and get him ashore. So real did these ideas seem that he could almost feel the solid ground of Mother Earth under his feet.
The way the ship lurched disabused him of that particular reverie and it also brought on a stab of guilt as he realised that he was thinking only of himself, ignoring the needs of those who had been taken up with him. That brought forth several emotions on top of self-reproach, feelings he had harboured before; annoyance at the way these men sought decisions from him, almost forcing him to be a leader – to think for them all when all he wanted was to think for himself. Michael, Charlie Taverner and young Rufus Dommet had been pressed too and with just as much brutality; they had shared discomfort as well as adventure, had been threatened and had stood together. In the giant Irishman’s case Pearce had grounds to believe he owed him his life. He was less beholden to the other pair, but still they had come to think of themselves as a group; the Pelicans, named for the tavern from which they were pressed. On first acquaintance it was easy to consider abandoning them and he had tried to do so. Then they had been strangers; it would be much more difficult now.
‘I feel sick.’
Cornelius Gherson’s whine, so familiar to those who knew him, coincided with a more telling heave of the deck, as a groaning Griffin lurched and steadied. Colbourne glanced up from his reading for a brief moment before carrying on. If he observed, from his close proximity to the complainant, that this newly pressed recruit was green around the gills it had no effect. Pearce could not see Gherson clearly but then he did not have to; the habitual pout on his almost too pretty face was common enough to require no imagination.
‘Don’t chuck it, mate,’ cawed the mahogany-faced fellow called Latimer, ‘lest you want to lick it back up like a dog.’
‘Don’t go down on all fours in front of anyone on this barky, lad,’ hissed another sailor in Gherson’s ear. ‘It would be to some aboard like an invite.’
That brought forth one growl of dissent, but mostly suppressed laughter; it was the way Colbourne did not react to the interruption that mattered, for it told John Pearce a great deal. He would not claim to know the Navy in the short time of his enforced service but he had the ability to make and trust swift judgements on people he hardly knew, for he had grown up surrounded by them as he traversed the length and breadth of Britain. This had been done in the company of his father, a well-known radical speaker and pamphleteer. John had watched Adam Pearce harangue, cajole and control crowds in many a fiery speech, this while his son passed round the hat to get enough coin for bed and board. Rarely had they stayed long in one place, often no more than a day. It had been an unsettled existence in which the growing boy had been frequently subjected to new surroundings, forced to make new friends, as well as to spot quickly those who might be enemies.
He was naturally and without consciousness doing that now, but he had one quite specific model against which to match this Lieutenant Colbourne, and that was his previous captain. The choleric bastard who had pressed him out of the Pelican would never have stood for such murmurings, nor would his crew have dared to utter them in the sure knowledge that such behaviour would see them gagged at the very least. So perhaps Colbourne was no despot, but was the manner in which his crew behaved brought about by easy familiarity – such as one might find on a happy vessel – or by the man’s lack of the attributes necessary to impose a rigid authority?
Pearce would know in time, but that thought served only to drive home the truth; that was the one commodity of which he had none, and that in turn edged his task from daunting to impossible. John Pearce had not only to get off this vessel but to cross a hostile homeland, at risk of arrest and seek the intercession of some of his father’s old friends to get the warrant lifted, brought on by a vitriolic pamphlet damning the government, which had forced both father and son to flee to France over two years previously. Regardless of the outcome he would then have to take passage over the very waters on which he was sailing to land in a country now at war with Britain and seething with bloodthirsty upheaval. He must make his way to the epicentre of the revolutionary storm and bring away from Paris his father, old and probably too sick to travel, then get him back to England. Anyone listening to that outlined would say he was mad, and the man contemplating these thoughts reckoned they would not be far off the mark.
‘Mr Short,’ Colbourne called, as he slammed shut the list of statutes and returned the book to his pocket, ‘the muster book if you please.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
Pearce looked for the voice, and found it to the rear of the companionway, in probably the only person aboard standing to his full, insubstantial height. At first he thought it a youth, but a step forward into a pool of light showed a pallid, lined, adult face and a truncated squat body, dressed in a midshipman’s blue coat. He was carrying a large leather-bound book, as well as a lidded inkpot, which he placed on one of the rungs beside his superior, before extracting a quill pen from his pocket. Beside him Pearce could feel Michael O’Hagan shaking with silent laughter, and it was several seconds before he realised the connection that his friend had made immediately.
‘Sure, they named him right, John boy, there’s barely half a pint of the sod. Jesus, he’d fit in my breech pocket.’
‘Mr Short will enter you into the ship’s books and allocate you the number of your mess. None of you has a rating, and you told me you are new to the service, so you will be entered as landsmen.’
‘I ain’t no landsman, your honour.’
Colbourne lent forward to detect the speaker, his gaze alighting on a sailor from the Lady Harrington who had been forced aboard to make up the number the lieutenant required. The crew of the merchantman had drawn lots and this poor fellow had lost. Pearce thought of him like that but had to acknowledge that he had accepted his fate, if not with enthusiasm, then certainly with a palpable degree of equanimity, his main concern seeming to be that any monies he was due from his merchant service, as well as news of his impressment, should go to the right place. The man was a sailor by profession, always liable to be taken up by the Press Gang and so perhaps accepted what had happened to him as just one of the hazards of that occupation.
‘I should be rated able, your honour. I can hand and reef with the best of ’em, and I ain’t no slouch in the tops, either.’
‘Name?’
‘Littlejohn, your honour.’
‘Mr Short, enter Littlejohn here as able.’
It was not only Michael who got that one; the whole crew began to laugh, some of it suppressed sniggering, in a couple of others less controlled, outright guffaws. Pearce was taken by the way Colbourne reddened in undisguised embarrassment, since it gave him another clue to his personality; he too saw the pun and was brought to the blush by the fact. A quick glance at the midshipman showed the pained expression of someone who had been, many times in his life, the butt of such jokes.
‘Carry on,’ Lieutenant Colbourne mumbled, before spinning round to make his way, hand over hand, back on deck.
Book held in one hand, Short had entered the able seaman, his next act being to point his quill at Pearce, who stepped forward and gave his name in a loud and clear voice. He could feel rather than see the reaction of his fellow Pelicans, and he was close enough to Cornelius Gherson to note a look of disappointment that his action engendered. Such a response was understandable given the way he had tried to protect his name the last time this had happened. On being mustered into Ralph Barclay’s crew aboard his first ship, Pearce had refused to give a name for fear that it would expose him as a possible felon. That subterfuge had not held; his real name, if not his reasons for withholding it, had soon become common knowledge.
‘That was bold of you, John boy,’ Michael opined, just after he had entered his own name, soon to be joined by Charlie Taverner and Rufus Dommet, who made the same point. Gherson, who joined the cluster, said nothing, just looked at him with deep suspicion. Being naturally untrustworthy himself, he would only see deep subterfuge in what was, to Pearce’s way of thinking, common sense. And quite possibly Gherson had harboured a notion to use his knowledge for some advantage; for himself, of course, he not being given to thinking of any one else.
‘Call it a benefit of experience,’ Pearce said, dropping onto his haunches to relieve the strain on his back, the others doing likewise. ‘I think we erred aboard Brilliant in the way we sought to fight not just Barclay but the whole crew. Given that he had caused most of the trouble it was Pearce’s turn to feel a tinge of embarrassment, as he observed Michael, Charlie and Rufus agree in their various ways. Cornelius Gherson’s expression did not alter, and a hard look from Pearce made him move away, for he was not really part of their group, having arrived in the same situation as them after being fished out of the River Thames. Experience since then had taught all of them to mistrust him and never to discuss matters of import in his presence. Once he was gone his three companions looked at Pearce with eager expressions, which brought forth a resurgence of his previous annoyance. What was it about them that they gave way so easily to his notions, even Michael O’Hagan, who would fight anyone taking the least liberty? It had been like that almost from the first; they made out that they wanted to get free of the Navy just as much as he did himself, yet seemed incapable of forming any method for doing so!
Right now, the looks he was getting forced him to continue. ‘They were not all bad aboard Brilliant, were they? There were some good men among them.’
‘None that I saw,’ snapped Charlie Taverner.
Pearce knew he was wrong, and was sure Charlie did too; it was only his natural bluster that had him denying the truth of what was being said, for some of the men on the frigate, if they had not been helpful about the Pelicans deserting, had gone some way to alleviate their discomfort. One or two had gone further than that, and told Ralph Barclay in no uncertain terms that on one occasion, in the article of punishment, he was coming it too high.
‘We must get some of the crew on our side,’ Pearce continued, ‘or at least to act towards what we aim to do with indifference.’
‘I doubt there’s many of them,’ said Charlie, not willing to concede an inch. ‘To my mind these tars are bastards to a man.’
‘Amen to that,’ added young Rufus, who tended to follow Charlie in most things.
Pearce’s response was terse. ‘Then let us, at least, lull them into not paying us too much attention. Look at Littlejohn and Gherson.’
The sailor was sat on a barrel, hugger mugger and chatting away to his new shipmates, no doubt looking for places and people that would make a connection, for the men of the sea were like a tribe. Cornelius Gherson, all tousled fair hair and gaucherie, was grovelling in front of another group headed by Latimer, which was his way, trying to ingratiate himself towards some kind of advantage. Hard to imagine in so crowded a space, but Pearce and his trio of fellow Pelicans had already managed to isolate themselves.
‘You.’
The finger, poked really hard into his shoulder, made Pearce look up, though he did not have to go very high to find himself in eye contact with Midshipman Short. Close to, the lines on the pasty face were more obvious, but it was hard to tell if the fellow was prematurely aged or suffering from some affliction that made him appear so.
‘Quit your lazing about. You’re not aboard your merchantman now, there’s work to do, so get moving.’
The last word was delivered with another hearty jab of the mid’s finger. The temptation to poke a fist very hard into that face was almost overwhelming; indeed John Pearce’s right hand had balled ready to do so without conscious effort, and he felt, as he always did when tempted to physical violence, the tremors that affected his body. But he forced himself to smile, and even touched his forelock as he responded in a meek voice.
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
CHAPTER TWO
Not reacting to the cry from the masthead of HMS Brilliant gave Captain Ralph Barclay a small frisson of pleasure, particularly since his young wife, Emily, had looked up sharply from her embroidery at the muffled shout of ‘sail ho’ – muffled because of the need to penetrate the closed skylight above their heads. He enjoyed demonstrating to her the authority he held, one that did not oblige him to respond immediately to everything that happened aboard ship; let others do that, then report to him if they, given what they observed, thought it necessary. There was another feeling in his breast, that being relief; the sighted sail would be one from the convoy he had been tasked to escort from Deal to Gibraltar, fifty-seven ships he had deserted in the face of standing Admiralty orders to pursue a single French intruder, in a way that could only be called, even in the most benign interpretation, a pursuit for personal gain.
The knock at the door was anticipated; the person who entered when commanded to do so, his acting First Lieutenant, was not. What was he doing undertaking a task that was properly that of the lowest midshipmen? Henry Digby removed his hat in the regulation fashion and tucked it under his arm, nodded to the top of Barclay’s lowered head, before turning to add a small bow in the direction of his wife, that acknowledged with a sweet smile. Her husband felt another frisson – this time less pleasant – thinking that Digby could only have come below personally to afford himself a chance of such an encounter. The thought made him speak in a sharper tone than he intended.
‘We have come upon our charges, Mr Digby, I assume?’
‘No sir, our lookout reports a three-masted vessel, we think a barque.’
‘Not the convoy?’ Ralph Barclay tried but failed to keep any hint of anxiety out of the question and even if he had achieved that the way he suddenly raised his head slightly to look at Digby directly, he was sure, gave him away. ‘Flag?’
‘None flying, sir.’
‘Course?’
‘The same as our own, sir, we are coming up dead astern of her.’
‘What do you recommend?’
Digby was surprised by that; Ralph Barclay was not a consulting captain, even when, as in this case, the answer was obvious. ‘Closing with them, sir, and obliging them to identify themselves.’
‘Then make it so Mr Digby, and inform me when they are hull up so I may take a look myself.’
Emily spoke as the door closed. ‘Young Mr Digby seems to be settling well into his task husband.’
There was a temptation to question the use of the word young, for there was little difference in their ages; if anything Digby might well be slightly the senior of the two. Odd that someone only approaching her eighteenth birthday should use such a word. No doubt it was the married state that allowed for such condescension.
‘He had better, my dear. It hardly looks as though his predecessor is going to make a swift recovery.’
Emily threw him a look of sympathy then for, even if he would not admit to it, even if she was unsure of the true cause, she knew her husband to be worried. The events of the past week had seen his mood swing dramatically, starting at exultation when they had first sighted a French privateer – a potential prize – switching dramatically as he had been humbugged by a superior sailing vessel. Fury as that French dog had snapped up one of his charges, albeit one that was laggardly, and carried her into a seemingly unassailable berth. The losses the ship had suffered in finding out the meaning of impregnability had been frightful, and only a stroke of what seemed to Emily like pure luck had saved matters.
During that period – the ups and downs – Ralph Barclay’s aura of husbandly superiority had suffered and his wife had discovered that she had no need to be meekly obedient to his every whim; she had found to her surprise that she had power in their relationship, that he craved her good opinion and was cast down if that was withheld. Discovery of such a thing had been heady, but Emily knew that whatever strength she had must be exercised sparingly, and never more so in allusion to recent events. In short, she could not be open and merely ask him outright to voice his disquiet.
Concern over Digby’s predecessor, the badly wounded Lieutenant Roscoe, lying pale and silent in the surgeon’s berth, was unlikely to be the cause – that she did know, for her husband disliked the man and had made no secret of it even before the recent action. They had exchanged high words on deck about certain decisions and it was quite possible that a recovered Premier would demand a court martial to clear himself of whatever slights Ralph Barclay chose to put against his name. Uncertainty as to the true cause of these anxieties deepened the furrows that already creased her brow.
Ralph Barclay could not face what he interpreted as a pitying look and for the umpteenth time that morning he opened the ship’s log and examined the loose sheets of paper he had stuffed in between the pages. These listed HMS Brilliant’s true position over the last few days; facts which he was reluctant to commit to the book, for once written up they could not be altered. One thing could be entered certainly, the removal of that damned pest John Pearce and his band of malcontents. The thought of Pearce made his blood boil; the palpable arrogance of the man, the way he had by insubordination driven a wedge between himself and his new wife, and even worse, engaged the sympathy of the whole ship’s crew against its lawful captain. That he had shown courage and resource in salvaging the bind that Ralph Barclay had created for himself was small recompense. He had taken the same occasion, the sending home of the East Indiaman Lady Harrington, to rid himself of his wife’s nephew, a useless young man who was, without doubt, cowardly to boot, thus removing another potential source of marital friction. The beauty of that manoeuvre was that he could make it look as though he was showing the boy favour.
The other loose papers were less cheering; not for the first time he damned an Admiralty, specifically Lord Hood, the man actually running the Navy, for saddling him with a set of officers who were strangers. Such a thing made life hard, for he could never be certain that the loyalty he had built up from men he had brought on in the service himself was there in the men imposed on him by Hood. The wounded Roscoe was a case in point; argumentative, unable to smoke his captain’s methods and preferences, forever questioning orders, showing no faith in those he was obliged to obey. He had demanded a court martial after a particularly high-worded spat the day before the action in which he had been wounded. Ralph Barclay tried hard to suppress the hope that his Premier would die of his wounds, his Christian beliefs fighting a hard and losing battle against self-interest.
His anxiety to catch up with his convoy was many layered, not least the mere fact that it was quite possible to miss them completely, even if it did consist of over fifty ships; the ocean was vast enough to hide an armada. Roscoe was a problem that he could do nothing about. If his Premier recovered it would mean trouble, if he expired his complaints about his captain would go with him to the grave. A quite different but related problem presented itself in the case of Davidge Gould, the man who commanded the sloop HMS Firefly, the second protective vessel tasked to escort the convoy to Gibraltar, a ship he had quite deliberately cut out of the chase and the subsequent action. He would have Gould aboard as soon as he joined, with his own ship’s papers, including Firefly’s log which, no doubt, would have been kept scrupulously up to date; then and only then could he decide what to put in his own, facts about courses, times and positions that would make his actions appear in the best light.
At some time in the future this book before him would end up at the Admiralty, and there was just a chance that some clerk, emerging from his habitual torpor, might cast an eye over it. So a little obfuscation would be necessary; not downright lies, for that would be too obvious, but just enough to ensure that should the two logs be read together, the facts would not, too obviously, jar. That was something of which he could be reasonably confident; the idea that such Admiralty clerks were eagle-eyed defenders of the nation’s needs was, Ralph Barclay knew, a myth. They were idle, claret-swilling placemen more interested in their salaries, pensions and post prandial naps than in the misdemeanours or minor peculations of naval commanders. They would sit, these logs, along with the purser’s accounts and myriad other papers gathering dust, very likely never subjected to more than a cursory look, but, should someone in authority, in the future, wish him ill, and seek for something in his background with which to damn him…
Another sharp tap stopped that train of thought, as Midshipman Farmiloe, tall, fair of hair and gangling, knocked and entered. ‘Mr Digby’s compliments, sir, the chase is hull up.’
‘Chase, Mr Farmiloe? I was not aware that we were engaged in one.’
Farmiloe knew better than to respond. ‘Mr Digby wished me to add that it’s odd, sir, that they don’t seemed to have smoked we are in their wake.’
Ralph Barclay sat forward, suddenly all attention. ‘Say again?’
‘Well, sir, if they have lookouts aloft…’
‘Which they must surely have.’
‘…they are not looking over their stern.’
Ralph Barclay got to his feet, and called for his hat.
‘From which we can deduce, Mr Farmiloe, that their attention is on something more tempting.’
‘The convoy, sir.’
‘Precisely.’
The atmosphere on deck, the air of tension, told the ship’s captain that everyone on watch down to the ship’s cat had drawn the same conclusion. The midshipmen, normally content to remain snug in their verminous berth, were visible, as was the master, Mr Collins. Even the little surgeon Lutyens had come up and was now deep in conversation with Digby. That ceased as soon as his presence was noted, with everyone coming to attention and raising their hat. A glance aloft at the sail plan told Ralph Barclay that his previous instructions, to crack on, were being obeyed. A glance at the slate told him that HMS Brilliant was making eight knots on a steady wind that was coming in nicely over her starboard quarter, and a current that was aiding her passage. Taking a telescope from the rack he trained it on the ship in whose wake they lay, a barque as he had already been told, with a low freeboard and clean lines. Most obvious was the fact that she had reefed her mainsails – that she was not sailing at anything approaching her full speed.
‘Mr Digby, I hope we have a weather eye out for French warships. I would hate to make the same mistake as our friend yonder.’
‘We have that, sir, and since we are due west of Brest, I have given orders that one of our lookouts, on the mizzen top, should pay particular attention to that quarter.’
‘Good.’
‘Do you anticipate French warships?’ asked the fish-eyed surgeon, Lutyens, in his high-pitched voice.
Everyone else stiffened. You did not question a captain on his own quarterdeck, and certainly not one as tetchy as Ralph Barclay. It was common knowledge that Lutyens knew nothing of the sea or naval life, just as it was common knowledge abaft the mainmast that his powerful connections ashore were such that it was a wonder he had chosen to serve in the Navy at all, never mind a lowly frigate. It was that which saved him from a bad-tempered blast. For a man with little interest to aid his career, Ralph Barclay needed to be careful with one who had so much that he could decline to employ it. The telescope never wavered, though the voice was far from friendly.
‘The French Navy may be in revolutionary ruin Mr Lutyens, with most of its competent officers fled or dead, but there are still men who can sail and fight their vessels. It is also the case that these are their home waters, and Brest is their main naval port, so it behoves me to be aware of the threat.’
Lutyens whipped out a little notebook, one that he carried everywhere, much to the annoyance of all aboard and did what he always did, scribbled some note in it. Many aboard had speculated as to what that book contained and thoughts amongst the crew of pinching it and getting someone to read its contents were commonplace, for all were convinced it could not be laudatory.
Brilliant was close enough now to see the tiny figures on the barque’s deck, all crowded in the bows on the weather rail. Ralph Barclay had no doubt that they were French, another privateer out on the hunt for an English merchant vessel. He had a sudden vision of the way the one he had previously pursued had humbugged him, not once, but three times; that and other considerations made him act.
‘I would wish to alter course slightly, Mr Collins. Take us inshore a trifle. I want this fellow left with only the option of the open sea and an unfavourable wind when he wakes up to our presence. Mr Digby, a word to the lookouts, if you please, to cast their eyes well beyond our friend yonder. From our higher masts we should be able to pick out the convoy before we overhaul him.’
‘Sir.’
One nimble young mid was sent aloft with the message, while Farmiloe was despatched to inform the captain’s wife that there was something of interest for her to see. Her coming on deck, well wrapped in a hooded cloak, coincided with the slight alteration of course, which meant adjustment to the yards to take full advantage of the wind. It also coincided with someone aboard that barque casting a look over the taffrail, for their deck was suddenly a hive of activity, as the reefs came out of her sails and her speed increased markedly.
‘Deck there, sail due south. Two sail. More.’
‘Our convoy, my dear,’ said Ralph Barclay, as he took Emily’s arm. ‘And between us and them a French dog waiting for nightfall to sneak in and snap up one of our charges.’
‘Chase has altered course to starboard. And he has hoisted a French flag.’
‘That means he is heading out to sea, my dear, into the wind and away from his home shore, hoping to outrun us, perhaps even that some French warship is in the offing to aid him.’
‘I can barely make out what he is doing husband.’
‘Mr Digby, I wish you to fire off one of the forward cannon.’ That got him several discreet sideways glances, for they were well out of range of the barque. ‘No ball, just powder, and keep firing. Let us alert those ahead of us to the presence of an enemy. If Captain Gould has his wits about him he will put up his helm to investigate, which will give our friend yonder something else to think about.’
‘Now, Emily, my dear, let us see if I can help you to master this telescope.’
‘Is this the time husband?’
‘None better, my dear, given that we have something for you to look at.’
Everyone wanted to observe this event, for this was a gentler Ralph Barclay than they knew, but only Lutyens, with no notion of the discipline required on board a ship of war, had the ignorance to openly stare as Barclay put his arms over his wife’s shoulders, and admonished her to steady herself against him and his well-spread legs to master the roll of the ship.
‘Now put this to your eye, so, and your hand to the front part, then twist and extend it till the image becomes clear.’
‘Sea and sky, husband, is all I can manage.’
Ralph Barclay put his head very close to that of Emily, so as to point the telescope in the direction of the chase, delighted with the squeal of pleasure that told him, however briefly, that it had appeared in view. He could smell his wife’s musk, the odour of her body as a sliver of warm air escaped from under her cloak to fill his nostrils, and leaning against him as she was, with her body resting on his, induced a natural tumescence. He was aware of the attention their joint posture engendered and took pleasure in the jealousy of those surreptitiously watching them.
‘We shall have him before nightfall my dear, especially if Captain Gould brings Firefly into play.’
The anxieties which had assailed Ralph Barclay in his cabin faded: the problem had not disappeared, but luck had presented him with an opportunity to palliate his second in command, the man who, barring the wounded Roscoe, could most threaten his position. Situations where lieutenants like Roscoe fell out with their captains were endemic, and a bane that the Navy suffered with reluctance, given that it was usually one man’s word against a superior officer, with courts of fellow captains inclined to support the senior man. That was not the case with a man who ran his own ship, even if he too was only a lieutenant. The word of a Master and Commander would count as near-equal; in short he would be listened to with great attention.
Gould would hear the cannon fire – nothing carried at sea so much as that booming sound. He would come about to investigate and together they would snap up this fellow trying to run from them. A share in a prize, a bit of hard coin in the purse, was just the thing to persuade another officer that whatever actions had previously been undertaken by Ralph Barclay, however questionable they had seemed at the time, could be justified. For a man who held that fate had, throughout his life, been less than kind to him, Ralph Barclay, with a wife seventeen years his junior in his arms, on the deck of his own vessel, envied by all aboard and in pursuit of an enemy he was certain to catch, felt just for once like the luckiest fellow in creation.
There was little drama in the capture; it took time for the fellow kept running, tack upon tack, as far as he could. Collins brought HMS Brilliant around and into the wind with something approaching efficiency, which pleased a captain who harboured ambitions to be in command of a crack vessel. Quiet suggestions from Ralph Barclay adjusted the sail plan in minor ways that made the frigate sail easier, if not perceptibly faster. The wind now coming in over the bows blew back his wife’s hood, ruffling her long, loose-worn hair, and all the while her husband clutched her close and helped her fiddle with the telescope.
The Frenchman, judging by the streaming jets, had started his water barrels and was pumping like mad to get it over the side and lighten his ship. Well aware that he was at the apex of a losing triangle, other ship’s stores followed and finally the small cannon, trunnions and all – popguns really, designed to threaten rather than destroy, but telling in their weight nevertheless. But there was one thing he could not chuck over the side; the numerous crewmen any close-to-shore privateer must carry on board to take and sail into harbour a number of enemy merchant vessels. The idea that he might shift them into his boats and abandon them, which is what Ralph Barclay would have done, disappeared as his cutter and jolly boat were cast adrift to float away on the current.
Davidge Gould, in Firefly, had reacted as Ralph Barclay knew he must, coming about to investigate gunfire that might be in some way a threat to the convoy. In doing so he would have espied both the chase and Brilliant’s topsails and deduced what was obvious; the frigate cut the French privateer off from the shore; he must deny him a southing, his best point of sailing on the present wind, and force him to the open sea. He would also quickly smoke that it would be his ship, a better sailor on a bowline, not Brilliant, which would effect the capture. Content that all was in hand, and that nothing of import would happen for some time, Ralph Barclay and his wife could safely retire to their cabin and some privacy.
‘Lucky bastard,’ said one of the sailors close to the surgeon. He was not addressing Lutyens, but a fellow tar. ‘Every man jack aboard horned up and Barclay’s the only one that can ease it.’
‘It is a matter of some curiosity to me,’ opined Lutyens, to no one in particular, ‘that sailors, who from their conversation and behaviour when ashore are a salacious bunch, do not travel aboard in quantity the means to assuage their lust. It would be better if half the crew were females.’
That got him several looks, not all benign, for he was an anomaly on board every bit as unusual as the captain’s wife; over-qualified for his post, always prying into matters that were held to be outside his province, a stranger to the ways of the service, and scribbling in that little book that was ever with him. Those looks were sharply curtailed when a grinning sailor responded.
‘We do, your honour. Ain’t you never heard the term all hands to the pump.’
‘Belay that,’ barked Digby, ‘and get on about your duties.’
Lutyens heard the parting shot as the fellow replied softly. ‘There you go mate, only sinners aboard reside before the mast. It’s all saintly purity in the gunroom with hands clasped in prayer.’
‘Mr Lutyens,’ said Digby, coming close enough so that only the surgeon would hear him. ‘It does not do to excite the crew.’
Lutyens, surprised, looked even more like a fish than usual, his eyes larger and that thin curled hair blown back by the breeze. ‘I was not aware that it was I who excited them, rather that it was the captain’s clear intentions towards his wife. As to the means of release, which that fellow alluded to, it is to my mind an activity to be heartily recommended. I myself employ it frequently, as I am sure you do.’
Digby’s cheeks were red from the wind; the deeper reddening that suddenly suffused his face had nothing to do with that.
A half hour later Barclay came back on deck alone, keenly examined by every one who could look at him without being observed, though only the good Lord could say why, for there was no discernable change in his appearance. He picked up his telescope, trained on the quarry, then said:
‘Bow chasers, Mr Digby.’
‘Sir.’ The order being passed on, Digby asked, ‘Do you wish to clear for action?’
‘No. The fellow has ditched what little armament he has. A couple of shots over his bows should bring him too.’
‘Might I recommend we issue some muskets, sir?’
‘The marines have sufficient, Mr Digby. Let’s get them up into the bows so our friend yonder can see what is coming.’
Firefly must have been waiting for the senior vessel to fire. As soon as a ball from Brilliant left the frigate’s larboard chaser, a great plume of smoke was seen to blow away from the other escort’s bow.
‘Well, this fellow is no hero,’ snorted Barclay, as the tricolour flag at the masthead of the ship they were pursuing was immediately run down. ‘Not even a musket shot for his honour.’
CHAPTER THREE
The routine aboard Griffin swiftly assumed a familiar pattern learned in only a week aboard HMS Brilliant, reminding John Pearce just how much such custom was one of the tools by which authority dulled thoughts of liberty in men who were not sailors by trade. The naval day was fixed by the tasks they had to perform, the naval week by the irritation of repetitive food and the odd ceremony like Divine Service. The other method of control was exhaustion, for moving any sailing vessel from one place to another was hard physical work, made worse aboard this ship because no amount of habit could inure a man to sleeping in the cramped circumstances which pertained aboard an armed cutter, a state of crowding that made life aboard a frigate, with twenty-eight inches of space and the odd bump into a nearby body, seem like slumber paradise.
Proximity to his sleeping neighbours had forced up the sides of his hammock, so that Pearce had felt himself to be in something like a tomb. He could feel the effect that ran down both sides of his body, which had been crushed between two others as the ship pitched, rolled and snubbed on every wave, the groaning of the timbers almost human in their tone of complaint. His neighbours, judging by the muffled cursing which occasionally emanated from their hammocks, had suffered as much as he. Pipes blew at the opening of the naval day, in darkness, to rouse the watch off duty to quit their hammocks and stow them. A ship of war in a time of conflict stood to every morning before dawn, boats over the side, ports open and guns run out as the light increased sufficiently to allow the captain to ‘see a grey goose at a quarter mile’; really to ensure that no enemy had snuck up close to them during the hours of darkness to gain an advantage that could see the ship taken.
Sure of an empty sea the guns were housed, flintlocks removed, the shot replaced in their garlands, cartridges and priming quills returned by scampering powder monkeys to the gunner sat behind his thick, canvas fearnought screen, the standby slowmatch doused and the crew set to commence the cleaning of the decks, a task carried out eagerly because only on completion could they be piped to breakfast. Food was another tool of authority, for if it was, to many, unpalatable stuff it was regular, plentiful and in the case of HMS Griffin, reasonably fresh, got up by a cook that had to work on a jury-rigged stove that could not be set up until the captain was sure the ship was safe, the planking underneath his pitch the first to be cleaned. Such regular food was not gainsaid to a toiling labourer ashore, a fact of which sailors were wont to remind each other, as though somehow just having a square meal was a blessing.
For the Pelicans the comfort of their own table, which they had enjoyed aboard the frigate, was not vouchsafed to them on Griffin. Littlejohn, allotted to them as the leader of their mess, tallied off a pair to take the mess-kids and fetch the grub, but it was eaten where a space could be found, some choosing even on a calm but chill morning to take their victuals on deck rather than squeeze into the stifling hutch that passed for the crew’s quarters. At the rear of that, guarded outside mealtimes and sleep by a marine, a canvas screen cut off a space roughly one third of the whole lower deck for the two mids and the captain. Pearce, looking along the deck beams above his head, calculated that while there was more space per body, there was no luxury aboard for officers either.
‘Gunner’s coop is in there’n all,’ said Latimer, when Pearce asked about it. ‘Berths opposite where the mids and the captain’s steward squeeze in, afore Colbourne’s screened off bothy, and he don’t half come it high an mighty ’cause he has his private space, jeering at the others warrants. Puts a plank o’er his powder barrels and calls it a bed, ’cause there ain’t the room to sling a hammock. He’s a squat arse, is the gunner, have to be to get a wink.’
‘I don’t know where you’re sitting, brother,’ said Michael O’Hagan, ‘but I have scarce the space to swing my elbow.’
Another voice spoke, one whose face was well hidden by the crowded sailors. ‘Happen God was having a special jest when he put you aboard this barky, Paddy. Might be he wants to cut you down to size.’
‘Christ, Blubber!’ exclaimed another unseen voice, to a ripple of laughter, ‘he’s near the size of you. Man could cut the bog-trotting bugger in two an’ he still wouldn’t fit.’
Pearce, sitting very close to Michael, sensed his body stiffen and saw the way his face closed up. The Irishman was not averse to being called Paddy as long as he granted the person naming him so the privilege, but he was dead set against anyone assuming the right.
‘The good Lord might have put me here to shut some gobs that need it, and to gather a few teeth to sell whenever I get ashore.’
‘Easy friend,’ Pearce whispered. It would hardly aid things if the Irishman started belting folk, for he had hams for hands and they would do serious damage.
O’Hagan ignored the attempt at restraint, his voice holding no humour now. ‘And if I can’t find room enough to swing my elbows I will be chastising and laying out four at a go, which will not bother me at all, given the time it will save.’
Charlie and Rufus had stopped eating, like Pearce waiting to see if anyone would take up the challenge. There would be hard cases aboard, just as there were in every group of gathered males, at sea or ashore, men who commanded others with their fists. Michael had been obliged to deal with the bully called Devenow aboard Brilliant, and he was obviously quite prepared to do the same here, all it needed was for someone to declare themselves willing to accept the challenge. No one spoke, though Pearce observed some members of the crew throw glances at one or two of the larger specimens, men who might have laid claim to respect prior to the arrival of these latest crewmen. Those in question seemed very intent on eating their food, so it was Michael who broke the silence.
‘Now you will find me Paddy enough to break a smile and laugh at a joke, and maybe even one to give a helping hand to a struggling fellow. But I will have the proper regard I am due from all here.’
The canvas screen was pulled back and Lieutenant Colbourne, hatless and with his coat undone, appeared, ranging his eyes over the crowd. That canvas screen and the one behind it would have done little to muffle Michael’s loudly proclaimed statement, and the hard look in his eye was designed to tell all present that he would not tolerate violence.
‘Mr Short,’ he said, addressing the hidden midshipmen. ‘With the sea state being so gentle, as soon as the crew have finished their breakfast we will carry out practising boarding from boats.’
‘Christ in heaven,’ hissed Michael as Colbourne turned away, steadying himself against the roll of the ship. ‘Gentle, he says! Is that blue-coated fool resting his pins on the same bit of wood as me?’
