Blown Off Course Read online

  ‘Such a ferocious stare, sir, I would not want to be the object of your ruminations.’

  Pearce looked up at the man who stood before him, into a winning smile in an amiable, handsome face, immediately relaxing his own compressed features. ‘I was lost in recollection, sir.’

  ‘Then damned unpleasant they must have been, Lieutenant.’

  ‘I was recalling the night a press gang burst into this very room and carted off all of the able-bodied men, myself included.’

  ‘That was but a year past was it not?’ the stranger said, his eye running over the uniform coat with an air of deep curiosity.

  ‘Then you know of it?’

  ‘Sir, it has been the talk of the place ever since, almost the first subject to which I was made aware when I moved my place of business to a set of chambers close by and began to come to the Pelican for refreshment. Allow me to name myself: Arthur Winston, and you, sir, are …?

  ‘John Pearce.’

  ‘And you were pressed that night?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘An act which is illegal in this part of the metropolis?’

  That made Pearce smile, so unaccustomed was he to that misconduct being acknowledged. The Liberties of the Savoy came under the legal jurisdiction of the Duchy of Lancaster, they being the boundaries of the long-gone Savoy Palace, which had been home to John of Gaunt, third son of the King Edward who won at Crécy, progenitor of the bloodline which had produced in his grandson, Henry, the more famous victor of Agincourt. For several centuries, because of its exempt status outside the control of the Royal Courts, it had provided sanctuary for the less salubrious citizens of London and Westminster. One of the statutes of the Liberties, well frequented by Thames watermen, was that it was against the law to seek to press seamen from within its confines.

  Seeing agreement in Pearce’s expression, Winston added, in a sombre tone, ‘But I suspect you are familiar with that to an uncomfortable degree.’ He leant forward to see into Pearce’s near empty tankard. ‘Would you permit me to purchase you a refill, sir?’

  A look of suspicion crossed Pearce’s face; he could not help it, for life since childhood, traversing the whole of the kingdom in the company of his radical father, had attuned him to distrust unwarranted and too spontaneous generosity, often the precursor to an attempt at chicanery. Yet it disappeared as fast as it surfaced: what possible harm could there be in taking a tankard from this fellow?

  ‘I confess a purpose, sir,’ Winston said, his face solemn. ‘I am agog to hear of what happened to you and how, in the name of creation, after so short a time, you can be wearing what I assume is a uniform coat of a rank to which you are entitled.’

  Avoiding a direct answer, being guarded about the story of his elevation to a lieutenant’s rank, Pearce grinned, invited the fellow to sit down and accepted the invitation to drink, this time a tankard of porter. Perhaps it was the fact that he was nothing to do with the King’s Navy, or even that he was an habitué of the Pelican and thus something of a soul mate to his friends, stuck in Portsmouth, awaiting their protections.

  As the serving wench, called over with her jug to provide the necessary, came towards them, Pearce, seeing the depth and extent of her visible bosom, as well as the width of her hips, was reminded of Rosie, another fulsome girl first seen on that ill-fated night, one who had enjoyed the favours of Michael O’Hagan while simultaneously fuelling the jealousies of Charlie Taverner. When he mentioned this other wench’s likeness to Rosie, his new companion reacted with disbelief, the look on his face one which implied he thought an association between them somewhat unlikely.

  ‘She was an acquaintance of yours, sir?’

  ‘I confess I really did not know her, Rosie being of neither a shape or personality to attract me, but she was at one time the paramour of a friend.’

  ‘And the possessor of the most overwhelming bosom this side of Tartary.’

  ‘The friend in question was Michael O’Hagan and he was pressed at the same time as me.’

  ‘Then sadly, if he still carries a torch for Rosie, he will find his bird flown.’

  ‘A fact he mentioned with some regret.’

  ‘Aye, a farmer came in some months past from Covent Garden market, apparently, with gold in his hand and love in his heart for a wench with such massive udders and he carted her off, no doubt to milk her. I think it was the former, the gold, which swayed your wench, for my information is that he was not overtly handsome.’

  Charlie Taverner had also harboured designs of Rosie and he was handsome, but that had availed him little, which made sense of Winston’s observation. ‘I reckon you are correct, sir: she was also the object of affection to another friend who lacked the means to engage her interest.’

  ‘So, sir,’ Winston said, now sat beside Pearce and his eyes full of hope. ‘Am I to be favoured with a telling of your tale, or are the memories too painful to recount?’

  ‘There is a great deal to tell.’

  Winston waved his tankard, full and foaming. ‘I have no pressing engagements.’

  John Pearce, as he responded, felt required to mention the fact that he was a stranger to the Pelican himself, having only recently returned from Paris, which had Winston’s eyebrows twitching with interest, and that required an excuse be found for why such a thing was so – he had no intention of telling a man unknown to him he had been on the run. So he concocted a tale of seeking out a French acquaintance in trouble, hinting at a woman without actually saying so, which led Winston to allude to the danger of a Briton looking for anything in such a dangerous setting as a city in the grip of the bloody revolution.

  Pearce deflected that by admitting to a soft heart, which protected him from exposure and went on quickly to change a subject replete with untruths and in danger of spinning out of control. This he did by recounting the first suspicions he had that something was amiss in the Pelican, aroused by a group of tars, accompanied by a red-coated drummer boy, who had come in after him and had, to his mind, acted strangely.

  ‘They barely drank, Mr Winston, and made no display, which for blue-water sailors is singular indeed, so I began to suspect something might be afoot, but before I could act upon my misgivings the whole press gang burst in, clubs waving. I made for the side door you observed me glaring towards, narrowly avoiding a clout from our Irish friend, only to find a bastard called Ralph Barclay and more tars in possession of the alleyway.’

  ‘You put up a fight, for I am told there was mayhem?’

  ‘I very nearly got clear, sir, but they possessed numbers and there were simply too many with whom to contest, so, once bound, I was done for – and I was not alone, of course: those I had been conversing with previously were taken as well. You may have heard of them too: an old wiseacre called Abel Scrivens, sadly now deceased, and another very likely also gone to meet his Maker, a West Countryman called Ben Walker. He was taken by Barbary pirates and the last I saw of him was as a wharfside slave in Tunis.’

  The memory of that made Pearce pinch the top of his nose, his eyes shutting at the same time. Abel Scrivens had died in place of him, less than a week into that first voyage, while circumstances had forced him to leave Ben Walker to his fate and the memory of that, mixed with a tinge of self-pity, never failed to make him slightly lachrymose.

  Winston was all apology. ‘Sir, I am distressing you, it is clear.’

  ‘It is hard to recall them without sorrow, for if those two men resided here for crimes or misdemeanours, they did not deserve what came their way. But two of the others with whom I became companions are at present safe aboard a ship anchored off Portsmouth, very likely now joined by a third.’

  Pearce paused then, wondering whether to mention Pitt and his promises, but he decided that would sound to fantastic to a stranger. Yet it provided a concomitant resolution; if he did not hear from Downing Street he would have to act as if the promises made were not going to happen.

  ‘Tomorrow I go, first to the Admiralty to pick up for t
hem protections, then down to Hampshire to bring them to safety. Not only will they be released from naval service, but also they will have no fear of press gangs or the crimps that line the Portsmouth road.

  ‘And these fellows are?’

  ‘O’Hagan, the aforementioned Charlie Taverner and a young lad called Rufus Dommet.’ Pearce raised his tankard, Arthur Winston following suit. ‘We called ourselves the Pelicans, a soubriquet that bound us as one. Here’s to them and to my joy that I may once again share with them a tankard in their old haunt.’

  ‘You must go ashore,’ insisted the master of HMS Fury. ‘Matters have altered and it has to be so.’

  He said these words while looking up into the face of a less-than-enamoured Michael O’Hagan, newly back on board. Behind the master stood the purser, a thin stick of a fellow, as well as a pair of the other warrants permanently attached to the damaged frigate, the gunner and the carpenter. Clearly they saw safety in numbers when it came to dealing with the Pelicans, one of whom was still unhappy at a change of the original plan to travel with John Pearce, while not being made any more confident by the news Michael brought.

  ‘You say he’ll be here on the morrow, Michael,’ Charlie had said, ‘an’ maybe he will if ’n a pretty face don’t take his fancy.’

  Charlie Taverner was reminding them the same fellow had left them high and dry once before while he pleasured himself with a high-born lady, which delayed his return from London to fetch them off another vessel, an error that saw all three of them shipped off to the Mediterranean from the very Spithead anchorage in which the were now anchored.

  The merchant ship from which they had been rescued, the Guiscard, had been taken in by the surveyors to be valued and examined as to the legitimacy of it being a prize, the seamen with whom they had boarded her, being long-serving naval volunteers, had been happy to go with her and, once on shore, to either contact their old captain in the hope of future employment or to sign on in another ship of war.

  Charlie and Rufus, debarred from going ashore themselves – they could not just hang about in the dockyard without being attached to a vessel and there had been nowhere else for them to reside. Since the dock at which the frigate would be fitted with new masts was occupied, another plea from Pearce to the captain for them to be allowed to stay aboard, to save money and avoid risk, had seemed the best solution.

  ‘Captain Warren said we was free to stay aboard this barky until Mr Pearce returned.’

  Turning to Charlie Taverner, who had mouthed that complaint, the master had his reply ready.

  ‘His commission was over yesterday and he has gone, which you have seen for yourself, but that is not the nub. This ship is to be warped in for inspection at first light tomorrow, which I admit we did not expect, and even if your officer comes he will be too late to save you, and I am bound to enquire if there is a risk he will be delayed?’

  ‘Who knows?’ added the gloomy carpenter, not in the least interested in the looks of doubt exchanged by the Pelicans. ‘She might be condemned. Her timbers are in a state after years in the Indies and what she suffered in that hurricano we went through damaged more’n just the masts.’

  ‘Please God she goes to the breakers and we get a better berth,’ mouthed the gunner. ‘I reckon I’m at least due a fourth rate for the years I’ve put in.’

  ‘That’s not the point,’ the purser insisted, not in the least interested in the gunner’s wish for a bigger ship and a higher rate of pay, or the carpenter’s pessimism about the state of the scantlings. ‘I have to make up my accounts for the Victualling Board and I can scarce do that with you lot still eating rations as though you belong aboard, without so much as a farthing of payment.’

  It was an impasse: Captain Warren, given his place on the captain’s list, was due a larger vessel and had been appointed to one, having got his personal followers ashore and away with him. The remainder of the crew, a high number of them Lascars, given the frigate had served on the Calcutta station, had been stripped out within an hour of Warren’s departure and sent to another warship unable to weigh for want of manpower. The only reason Charlie and Rufus had been left aboard was their not being listed on the frigate’s muster book; nor was Michael.

  ‘There’s two ways this can be done,’ the master added. ‘Either you leave or you will be faced by a file of marines sent to shift you ashore as soon as we tie up, with the dockyard mateys pocketing a reward for turning you in.’

  Michael O’Hagan wanted to pick the fellow up by his throat and ask him what he thought they would do if they did go ashore without either a ticket of leave which would stand up to scrutiny or an officer to safeguard them. What stopped him was the man’s age as well as his rank: he was not an officer in the strict sense, but he was the most senior of the warrants. To lay hands on him would not be kindly looked upon, but he did pose the question uppermost in his mind, and in a very brusque manner.

  ‘There are ways out of the dockyard, Paddy, and I can show them to you.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Get out of Portsmouth and find your officer fellow in London.’

  ‘That sounds as simple as kiss my hand,’ crowed Charlie Taverner, his face alight with sarcasm. ‘We won’t get over the bridge.’

  That induced a ruminative silence: the naval base lay near the tip of Portsea Island, connected to the mainland by bridges which, quite naturally, given the propensity of sailors to desert the king’s service, were well guarded for those seeking to get onto the mainland. Charlie, quite naturally, made no mention of the writs out for him and Rufus, a serious added danger.

  ‘You will if we give you a boat,’ said the carpenter, suddenly, to nods from his mates when he sought their approval. ‘If’n you make for the shore beyond Hayling Island you’ll have a clear run.’

  The carpenter looked quizzically at the master then: he knew about maps and he was not disappointed in the response as the man added, ‘Dry land all the way, and I can draw you a route to take that will get you to London.’

  ‘Easy for you to say,’ moaned Rufus Dommet, speaking for the first time. ‘You get to stay with the ship.’

  ‘Which is our right, lad,’ the master insisted, ‘but we are of the sea, so you cannot think us friends to those who would press you again, for even if we are not at risk ourselves we still despise the buggers for the low scallies they are. But you don’t have a choice: it’s take what’s on offer or you won’t even get out onto the hard. The marines will have all three of you aboard another barky before your feet touch and you can protest till you’re blue that you’ve got protections on the way. Open your mouth to that, an’ they’ll make sure you’re on a ship about to weigh that very day.’

  The implications of that were very unpleasant: once at sea they would be beyond the reach of legal safety and the navy had ways of making sure matters stayed that way. The trio exchanged glances, but in such a situation, with John Pearce absent, O’Hagan was the person to defer to.

  ‘A boat?’ Michael asked, eventually.

  ‘You might be best on your own, Michael,’ Charlie said, which got him looks of deep curiosity from the warrants.

  ‘No, we’re all in the same steep tub now.’

  If Rufus looked confused, Charlie understood; Michael was not going to desert them, seeking to use Pearce’s ticket of leave that had got him here, which, in any case, might not suffice going the other way, given the scrutiny of such documents was intense.

  ‘The jolly boat,’ the gunner suggested. ‘Big enough for five and small enough so one of us can come with you to fetch it back.’

  ‘Sure, we need food for the journey,’ said Michael.

  ‘An’ more besides,’ Charlie added. ‘Some kind of shore-goin’ rig and the like.’

  If three of the men before the Pelicans nodded, one did not, though they all knew why Charlie had made that demand. On the way back from the Mediterranean, HMS Grampus had caught fire and sank, taking with it most of their possessions. Some had been replaced t
hrough the good offices of John Pearce, but not all. It was the fourth fellow who presented the problem.

  ‘What?’ the purser demanded. ‘Shore-going rig! Have you not dunned me for enough?’

  ‘Mr Pearce paid for what we’re wearing,’ Charlie protested.

  ‘He’s yet to pay for the food you’re eating.’

  ‘I ain’t got no more’n a few pence left,’ O’Hagan growled, with such ferocity that the purser took two steps back and barged into the gunner, standing painfully on and bruising the man’s toes. ‘And by doin’ what you say we could be sacrificing any hope of what pay we’re owed.’

  ‘Bugger the pay,’ Charlie spat. ‘It’s a six-month wait to get that at best.’

  ‘You are sure Mr Pearce will return?’ the master asked.

  ‘Course he will,’ shouted Charlie, with all the confidence he could muster; any doubts he had would not be shared with this lot. ‘And he’s well found, what with the prizes we’ve taken.’

  More important was the look exchanged between the master and the purser, which implied the latter would have to accede to their request, that was until prizes were mentioned: the word brought a sudden gleam to the purser’s eye and, quite suddenly, he was all agreement.

  ‘I shall, of course, charge him a fee in interest, and of necessity it will be a high one, given the quality of what I will provide.’

  Seeing Michael’s glowering reaction to this promise of daylight robbery, the purser took refuge behind both the master and the gunner, not that the statement abashed him. The other two were looking at Michael O’Hagan, and though he did not say so, the Irishman knew they were on the horns of a real dilemma. To stay was impossible; to run fraught with peril. Never mind what they might face by being sent to sea again, Charlie and Rufus could face prison or transportation once ashore and away from the protection provided by the navy.

  As the alternatives ran quickly through his mind, he knew that what had been suggested presented the best course and that included landing Pearce with the purser’s bill. That would have to include some coin: what Pearce had given him he had used on the way south and when he said he had only pennies left that was the truth. Without money they would either have to steal or beg and that risked being quickly rumbled and handed over to the local watch, which was worse than being taken by a press gang.