A Flag of Truce Read online

  ‘Michael, it is only a short excursion.’

  ‘If it is that, John-boy, would you be after telling me why your face is as green as that water?’

  ‘It was having you behind me with a cutlass,’ Pearce joked, as Michael passed him and went through the gangway. Pearce followed, putting his first foot on one of the sopping wet battens that led down to the boat, his hands gripping the man-ropes with as much strength as he could muster. He had had the ignominy of dropping into a bobbing cutter before now, and he did not want a repetition. The cutter was rising and falling several feet and thankfully he timed his skip perfectly, to land where hands could keep him and his dignity upright. Lutyens made the expected fist of his boarding, but he was eased down by two of the oarsmen climbing up, one hand and one foot on rope and batten, to aid him down.

  ‘Cast off.’

  ‘Haul away, lads,’ shouted Costello, as the cutter was pushed off from the side of the ship. The oars bit hard, the men near standing to get purchase on their primary stroke, but they were clear, and cutting an angle that would bring Apollon up on them, with Dysart, boat hook in hand, taking charge of ensuring the lumbering ship-of-the-line did not run them down.

  Moreau had obviously surmised, or perhaps he had watched and seen, that Lutyens was no sailor, so he had rigged a chair on a whip from his yards to heave the surgeon on board. Self-respect demanded that Pearce could not take that route, and so he began a long climb that was nothing short of hair-raising as the French ship swung and dipped on the swell. He came to deck level sweating and stepped through to raise his hat, only realising as he did so that Moreau had taken down the Bourbon flag with which he had been supplied, and replaced it with a tricolour stretched across the poop rail. The grin was wide, the eyes positively dancing, as the Frenchman said,

  ‘You salute the true flag of France, Lieutenant Pearce.’

  ‘One day, sir, I must tell you why it is a standard for which I have little respect.’

  Michael O’Hagan came through the gangway with a hissed exclamation of, ‘God bless all here.’ They joined Lutyens before being led below to a very crowded and gloomy maindeck, the only light and air coming from the open gunports, with Moreau shouting for space to be cleared, which was obeyed with sullen resentment, leaving Pearce to wonder at the looks they were all getting, the Frenchman included.

  ‘I don’t rate our chances much, John-boy, if this lot think to take us.’

  ‘Then take your cutlass out of your belt, Michael, and let them see the blade.’

  ‘Christ in heaven,’ Michael exclaimed, as the crowd parted to reveal a body hanging from a hook, which had at one time been used to house the implements for working the guns. The face was black, the tongue protruding and half bitten through, this while the feet were toe down on the deck above bent knees.

  Lutyens look at the cadaver and said. ‘I do hope I have not suffered that journey in a boat just to tell you this fellow is dead.’

  ‘No, monsieur. We know he is dead. What we wonder is how.’

  Once translated, Lutyens responded sharply. ‘Is that not obvious? He hanged himself.’

  Moreau looked from Lutyens to Pearce and back again, and the surgeon’s words, when related to him, made him terse.

  ‘I would wish you to tell me, monsieur, how a man can hang himself when he is taller than the space between the deck and the beams above. I want you to tell me if this poor fellow has been murdered and, if that is the case, I would be curious to know if you have a view of how that can be done without the knowledge of over fourteen hundred men in a ship so crowded as this.’

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘I do not have aboard so much as a sword with which to defend myself,’ said Moreau, once they were in his cabin, which consisted of what would have been his sleeping quarters and a quarter gallery privy had Apollon carried its normal complement. ‘Your marines searched everything before we were allowed near these ships. All our weapons were confiscated.’

  ‘I cannot see, monsieur, what I can do about that.’

  ‘Lieutenant Pearce, I barely know you, yet I think you understand more about France as it is at the moment than most of your fellow officers.’

  ‘I have witnessed at first hand, Captain, that your fellow countrymen are no strangers to excess.’

  He held Moreau’s gaze then, wondering if he could guess just what he had seen; mobs from the filthy Faubourgs of eastern Paris, spurred on by ranting orators, who had, one year past, broken open the jails and massacred the prisoners; of crowds bearing torches that illuminated the bloody remains of the newly beheaded stuck on pikes as they marched, spitting venom, through the streets, promising the same fate to anyone of property. He could tell him of the crowded prisons where people died for want of the basics of life, while those who survived faced a tribunal that had only one verdict; the guillotine. That he did not do so was due to one fact only; he had no notion to mention his own father and thus recall and need to explain a painful memory.

  ‘I have to tell you, monsieur, that every shade of opinion is present aboard this ship, and I am sure it is the same on our consorts. Most of the sailors think nothing of politics, wishing only for their own hearths, but there are die-hard Jacobins stalking these decks, and, worse yet, men who think even such blood-obsessed creatures lacking enough fire in pursuit of revolutionary purity.’

  ‘What is going on, Pearce?’ demanded Lutyens, whose French was too poor to keep up with such a flow of words.

  ‘One moment, Mr Lutyens,’ Pearce replied, before turning back once more to Moreau. ‘What is it you want?’

  ‘Enough arms to enforce discipline, weapons with which to ensure that anyone advocating any kind of cleansing of those they call traitors can be taken and confined, and if they are guilty of murder, hanged as surely as that man was today.’

  Pearce broke off to explain to Lutyens, which had the added advantage of allowing him to think. He knew he could not make such a decision himself – it was up to Digby – but was it worth his while to put the case for arming the French against the express orders of Hood?

  ‘If you do not provide this, monsieur, there are many who will not see the Straits, never mind Biscay, and I may be one of them.’

  ‘Who was the dead man?’ asked Lutyens, a question Pearce passed on, thinking it was an enquiry he should have made himself.

  ‘He was mate to the sailing master, and he had only one aim, one I fear he made too public. To get back to his home port of Nantes and join with his fellow Vendéens to fight against what he sees as the Godless swine in Paris. There are others, of the rank you English term as warrants, who harbour similar views.’

  ‘Why not kill them all now?’

  ‘They will wait, but I know not how long. Perhaps it will happen as soon as they sight the approaches to our home ports, perhaps it will be tomorrow.’

  ‘What would you require?’

  ‘Pistols, cutlasses, a stand of muskets, enough to arm a guard I will appoint to ensure discipline.’

  ‘And you would suggest that Garnier and the other captains are gifted the same?’

  ‘I would.’

  ‘How can you know they face the same problems?’

  Moreau just smiled then, a full grin that spoke volumes, and Pearce surmised that, despite strict instructions not to do so, those commanding the four French warships had met and colluded, probably by boat and at night. The request he was hearing was from them all, not just Moreau.

  ‘I will have to put this to my captain, Mr Digby. Only he can decide on this.’

  ‘Might I add, for his consideration, Lieutenant Pearce, that we are yet to pass out of the orbit of Marseilles. Should these ships fall into the wrong hands, that may serve for some of the diehards as a port to aim for.’

  ‘I hope, Captain Moreau,’ Pearce snapped, ‘you have seen we have the means to prevent that.’

  Moreau’s smile was grim now. ‘Four capital ships, one sloop, armed with the means to do what? Hole them on the waterline
and we, with men on board who know only too well how to contain such a thing with plugs and frapping? I would say that try as you might, you will not stop all four from getting to Marseilles.’

  ‘There is something you are not telling me, Captain.’

  ‘Monsieur, there are things I cannot tell you.’

  ‘I will put the case to Captain Digby, I can do no more, and I will add, it might aid your request if you were to take down that tricolour from the poop rail and re-hoist the Bourbon flag.’

  ‘No!’ Henry Digby looked really angry that the idea had even been broached, though Pearce had been careful not to say if he was in favour or against. ‘They must look to persuasion. Gifting them arms is not something that can be done in secret. I can just imagine the Admiralty clerks, or Lord Hood’s scribblers, asking me where all our muskets, cutlasses and pistols had gone.’

  ‘There is that. I doubt, once given, sir, we would get them back again.’

  ‘Precisely! I leave it to you to work out how to tell Captain Moreau.’

  That made Pearce’s stomach drop; both the sea and the wind had got up while he had been aboard Apollon, so the journey back to his own ship had been a wet and, to Pearce’s mind, a precarious one. As the cutter rose, fell and swayed, Lutyens had closed his eyes and Michael O’Hagan had called for the intercession of every saint in the Catholic canon, yet he had to admit that the likes of Dysart, Costello and Martin Dent had shown no fear, which he put down to the natural fatalism of all sailors. What Digby was suggesting was no more than a return journey, for such a message could not be imparted through a speaking trumpet. Just then, after the most peremptory knock, Farmiloe burst in.

  ‘Lead French ship is signalling again, sir, and this time it is clear the message is distress.’

  Both Pearce and Digby were on deck in a flash, grabbing telescopes and raking them along the deck of Apollon, not missing the fact that the tricolour was now at the mizzen masthead. Farmiloe produced the signal book and confirmed that his interpretation was correct, just as the signal disappeared, to be replaced by the raising and dipping of another tricolour, only this time it was on the mainmast halyard. This had Pearce thinking about Moreau, and the feeling he had harboured that the Frenchman was holding something back.

  ‘Mr Harbin, aloft with a glass and keep an eye out due north. Sir, can we ask Mr Neame where we are in relation to the port of Marseilles?’

  That got him an odd look, but it only lasted a second before Digby nodded, and he showed his appreciation of the point by immediately ordering a change of course from sitting in the wake of the bigger vessels, to being inshore of them.

  ‘What do you anticipate, Mr Pearce?’

  ‘I think, sir, since our departure from Toulon was so talked about there must have been some kind of secret communication from within that place with elements of the besieging force. So, knowing that only one destination is possible, namely the Straits, an attempt might be made to take these vessels and the men they contain into Marseilles.’

  ‘If that is the case they will know both the name and the nature of the escort.’

  ‘I think it would be wise to assume that, sir.’

  ‘Mr Pearce, do you think that Captain Moreau still has control of Apollon?’

  ‘We will only know that, sir, if our charges change course.’

  ‘Sir,’ shouted Farmiloe, ‘I call your attention to the other three vessels.’

  They needed no telescope to observe that now, all four vessels were raising and dipping tricolours. Whatever had happened on Apollon was being repeated on her three consorts.

  ‘I think,’ said Digby, in a calm voice, ‘that we have a serious problem here, Mr Pearce. Beat to quarters and clear for action. Mr Neame, we have the wind, take me in close to Apollon, I want to be across her hawse to let her know, whoever has taken charge of that vessel, what they face.’

  HMS Faron was a hive of activity, as everything not required was shipped to safety. The cutter and the jolly boat were hauled in and loaded with the livestock – chickens, sheep and the ship’s goat; if matters got serious they must be cut loose to drift. All the paraphernalia of a ship sailing easy had to be cleared from the deck, while below the gunner was handing out flintlocks and his made-up cartridges to the gun captains and powder monkeys, this while on deck, the restraining tackles on the cannon were cast off, the gunports opened, the ship showing her teeth as the guns were run out.

  ‘Deck there,’ shouted Harbin. ‘Due north. I see boats approaching, sir, not warships, more like big luggers being worked by sweeps and I think they have been rigged with cannon in the bows.’

  Digby shouted, but even doing that he sounded calm. ‘To the number of?’

  ‘Four sir, and very low in the water, which will I think be the guns and perhaps the number of crew they are carrying.’

  ‘A lot of men, Mr Pearce, and to the number of four. I would hazard they intend to board their own national vessels. Mr Harbin, I need to know the calibre of those cannon as soon as you have a clear enough sight of them.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  Coming up hand over fist and passing, inshore of each French ship in turn, the silence from them had an eerie quality. Certainly there were men on the quarterdeck conning the ship, but there were none that Pearce could recognise when he went up the shrouds to have a look. It was Latimer, with sharp sight for his age, who drew attention to the flag draped in the quarter gallery casements of Apollon. Every other eye on all five vessels was looking north.

  ‘Wouldn’t do, your honour, to make too much of lookin’ at it.’

  ‘A fleur de lys pennant,’ Pearce said, as he swung his telescope in an arc that took in the whole French squadron. ‘That, sir, has to be Moreau sending us a signal.’

  ‘How can you be certain?’ Pearce explained about the trick with the flags as he had gone aboard, which had Digby adding, ‘If it is a signal, it is, I think, one only we can see.’

  The quarter galleries were to the side of the main cabin and wardroom, necessary rooms and sleeping cabins for the ship’s senior officers, captain on the maindeck, ranking lieutenants below. What was being waved in the casements of Apollon would not be visible over the stern, or from above.

  ‘It is a pity they are occupying those, Pearce. I had half a mind to put a ball through those casements to remind them of the cost of rebellion.’

  ‘If I may point to a dilemma, sir.’

  Digby interrupted him with a bleak smile. ‘I know, Mr Pearce. If we fire into any part of these vessels we may well maim or kill the innocent rather than the guilty.’

  ‘What do you propose to do, sir?’

  ‘Why, Mr Pearce, we must engage these vessels coming out from shore. Mr Neame, set us due north. I want to get within range of those fellows and sink them.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  On a south-easterly wind HMS Faron swung onto her new course with ease, yards braced round to take the breeze on a good point of sailing.

  ‘Twelve-pounders by the look of the armament, sir,’ shouted Harbin.

  ‘That is good, I feared something heavier.’

  ‘Still formidable weapons,’ advanced Pearce. ‘Greater than our own, bar the carronades.’

  ‘But low in the water, which will reduce their range,’ Digby said, more to himself than to his second-in-command. ‘Mr Pearce, I wish you to take charge of the larboard cannon with Mr Farmiloe. I shall call Mr Harbin down to assist me, but I need good eyes at the masthead.’

  ‘Martin,’ Pearce shouted, ‘aloft and relieve Mr Harbin.’

  ‘I want to fight them, sir.’

  ‘Then spit at them from the masthead. Move!’

  Martin was running up the shrouds in a flash, and as soon as he relieved Harbin of the telescope that youngster leapt for a backstay and slid down to the deck, reporting immediately to Digby.

  ‘They have closed up, sir, to sweeps near touching, to increase the effect of their cannon.’

  ‘Then, Mr Harbin, I think t
hey have made a mistake.’

  ‘How so, sir?’

  ‘Go to your station, Mr Harbin, and you shall see, very shortly.’

  John Pearce was watching Digby closely, impressed by his calm. He could remember going into action as the last officer standing and he knew his heart had beat hard enough to nearly burst out of his chest. Yet the man in charge now looked and sounded as though he had not a care in the world and if he had a plan he had yet to impart it, content as he was to merely observe the approaching enemy, now visible from the deck.

  ‘These luggers seem to be better for fishing than fighting, and I doubt there is a naval officer aboard. If they are from Marseilles, the Jacobins will have removed the head of anyone competent when they took back the town. Raise your long guns to maximum elevation, and train them as far forward as is possible. I wish to show them the limits to which they might approach in safety. With luck they may turn tail.’

  Digby ignored the audible groan that came from the gun crews; they wanted blood.

  ‘And make sure the bow chasers are manned and loaded. Tell me when you are ready.’

  Pearce tried to detect some impatience in that remark, but there was none. Digby waited until his gun captains had driven their elevation wedges in as far as they would go and levered the cannon round so the muzzles were near to touching the gunport sides, before ordering Neame to bear up, the ship turning on his command.

  ‘One at a time, Mr Pearce, for the sake of our timbers.’

  Pearce walked down the line of gun captains, each holding a lanyard which kept them several feet away from the cannon. He tapped each one on the shoulder and they pulled, immediately leaping back as the gun roared, sending forth a plume of orange flame surrounded by a blast of thick black smoke and a very visible ball arcing though the air. Each one of the six hit the sea well in front of the oncoming gunboats, sending up a plume of white water high into the air. By the time the last cannon was fired, the first was through the process of reloading, and within a minute Neame had them back on a closing course.