An Ill Wind Read online

  Onshore he could see the results of what Sir Sidney Smith was about, though he could only hear muffled evidence of the explosions. The arsenal was alight from end to end, the flames seeming to lick the low clouds, creating a glow that lit up everything around the naval harbour in a sort of hellish montage. HMS Vulcan had drifted into position, the towing boats having got enough way on her to get her heading to where Pearce needed her to be, her bowsprit right between the bow and stern of a pair of French seventy-fours.

  It had to be well timed: Pearce had to get himself and the remainder of the crew off the ship after the fuses were lit but before they took hold and exploded the powder, he having no true idea of how long that was. So he ordered everyone into the boats and went below himself to join the midshipman, who now stood over a tangle of fuses, long trails of primed cord, with a piece of slow match smouldering away in his hand. Sign language rather than words told Pearce that, once ignited, they would be required to run like the devil. After a nodded acknowledgement, the lad touched the fuse ends and they immediately began to splutter and trail off in a cloud of acrid smoke, progressing towards the various charges.

  He and the midshipmen were no longer there. The boy was racing ahead of Pearce, taking the companionway three steps at a time, but he had to be grabbed and directed to where the last boat, manned by the Pelicans, lay rocking and waiting. As soon as they had one foot on the cutter, the oars were dipped and they began to pull away from the ship’s side.

  Pearce should have sat down, but he was keen to see what the result would be and it was impressive: HMS Vulcan went up like a volcano erupting, a great sheet of flame shooting from her deck, that followed by a boom as the powder barrels went up. It was as though she grew to twice her size for a second, but that was blotted out by the mass of flames that engulfed her, great streams of burning pitch shooting out to run along the scantlings of the French seventy-fours, some rising high enough to set afire the standing rigging, that rapidly catching fire.

  Taking his naval officer’s hat from Michael, who had had the presence of mind to gather it up, Pearce jammed it on his head just as the debris from the explosion began to fall. Had he not been wearing it the lump of wood might have done him serious harm. As it was, landing on the crown of his scraper, it was hard enough to fell him and knock him unconscious.

  ‘Row for St Mandrier,’ Michael O’Hagan ordered, a shout that included the boat carrying the two wounded officers. In doing so he completely ignored the bemused midshipman who should have issued any command.

  CHAPTER TWO

  It was a groggy John Pearce who landed on the hospital jetty, still wet from his dip in the harbour and shivering, helped by Charlie Taverner and Rufus Dommet to stand upright while his boat was secured and the two wounded officers Pearce had rescued were unloaded from the other and taken to be attended to. A quarter of an hour later, inside the building, trying to dry out by the heat of a blazing fire, he was sought out by an anxious Heinrich Lutyens, the surgeon, who, having seen to his new patients, was eager to inform him that there was as yet no sign of the transport supposed to be coming to take off the wounded, as well as those who ran the hospital. Getting a mumbled response, he demanded of Pearce’s companions what was the matter.

  ‘If you look at this you’ll see, Mr Lutyens,’ said Rufus, handing him a hat, the crown of which had been flattened. ‘Lump of timber did that, your honour.’

  ‘And he had only just donned the bugger,’ Charlie added. ‘God must love him.’

  ‘Sit him down,’ Lutyens ordered, and once that had been done he began to run his upright finger back and forth across Pearce’s eye line, before running his fingers through the thick hair on the top of his head. ‘A touch concussed, for certain, but no sign of any abrasion.’

  ‘Why no transport?’ Pearce asked, in a low voice.

  ‘I have no idea. It was promised but has yet to arrive and I have to tell you time is of the essence. Word has come from the lieutenant manning the battery protecting us that the French may be massing for an assault, one he fears he will struggle to contain, and I would remind you the marines, too, need to be taken off.’

  Pearce heaved himself to his feet, slowly shaking his head to clear it. ‘Then there is no time to sit and ponder. Charlie, where is that mid we had with us?’

  ‘Still sat in the boat with the men from the Vulcan.’

  ‘Get him here. Heinrich, a pen and paper, I must send word to Admiral Hood and inform him that we face capture, and I would appreciate a tot of your medicinal brandy to clear my damned head. Rufus, fetch Michael; you, he and Charlie are to gather every man in this hospital who can fight, or even walk, and any men in the boats not needed to row. We need bodies in that redoubt to give the French pause.’

  ‘What about you?’ Lutyens asked.

  ‘Me?’ Pearce replied, picking up his wrecked scraper. ‘I need a new hat, I think. It wouldn’t help if the French saw that.’

  ‘I’m sure my husband would not begrudge you his.’

  The female voice made everyone present turn, to see Emily Barclay standing in a doorway.

  ‘With respect, madam, I think I am the last person he would wish to gift anything to.’

  If the pause that engendered was short, it was enough to remind those who heard the exchange that bad blood existed between Captain Ralph Barclay, her husband, and Lieutenant John Pearce. It had been Barclay who had illegally pressed the Pelicans into King George’s Navy, Barclay who had survived the travesty of a recent court martial for the offence, the verdict of which, that he was innocent of the charge, being one Pearce was determined to overturn.

  ‘Then accept it from me, sir.’

  ‘I do not think your husband would be grateful to you for that offer.’

  ‘You must leave, sir, my husband’s opinions of my actions to him and me.’

  Again no one was minded to mention that she was discussing a relationship that had undergone much recent strain, enough for her to leave both her husband and her floating home on his ship, the frigate HMS Brilliant, and take up residence here in the hospital. They had been brought back together because Captain Barclay had ended up as a patient, having required his left arm to be removed after a musket ball shattered his elbow during a failed assault on one of Buonaparte’s most dangerous batteries.

  Emily Barclay had not waited for a reply; she had gone to the room in which her wounded husband lay, returning, his hat in her hand. ‘Take it, sir, I beg.’

  Pearce had been joking about the hat, but he stepped forward to do as he was asked, not wishing to make light of her gesture. Up close he was struck, as he had been the first time he had clapped eyes on her, by her beauty. Even now, in a mob cap, a stained apron and showing signs of a lack of sleep, she looked striking: luminous eyes in a face of flawless skin, with just a wisp of her auburn hair escaping to stick to her cheek. The temptation for Pearce to reach out and brush it away was almost irresistible, yet resist he must, there were too many people present.

  ‘Is Devenow still with your husband?’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘Then please tell him he is needed, and if he shows a mind to object, tell him he best come if he does not want his captain to end up, once more, a prisoner of the French.’

  The way she pursed her lips then amused him. Was it a reminder of the unpleasant fact of her own confinement after HMS Brilliant had been taken in a hot frigate action off this very coast in midsummer, or was it that Devenow probably loved her husband more than she did? He was a man Pearce loathed, a lower-deck bully who generally made the lives of those he messed alongside hell, but if his devotion to Captain Ralph Barclay was absolute, his other quality, that of being a fighter, was of more moment in the present crisis.

  Pearce spun round to find the young midshipman, a slip of a lad who could be no more than fifteen and was probably younger, awaiting his pleasure. On the table Lutyens had placed an inkwell, a quill, a shaker of sand and the wax and candle necessary for the seal. Sitting down, Pearc
e began to write as he spoke.

  ‘I do not know your name, lad.’

  ‘Niven, sir,’ the boy responded, with a distinct Scottish accent which had Pearce wondering if he should claim national kinship. Deciding that would only delay matters he issued his commands.

  ‘Well, Mr Niven, this is to go to HMS Victory. Try to get it to Lord Hood or Rear-Admiral Hyde Parker, at the very least into the hands of the C-in-C’s secretary. Do not, and I say this at your peril, be fobbed off by anyone else.’

  The reply of ‘Aye, aye, sir’ was tremulously delivered.

  Pearce smiled. ‘Have no fear. You will find, young fella, that admirals are human and their bark is very much worse than their bite. You can command the boat crew, I hope?’

  ‘I can, sir.’

  ‘Then go and God speed.’

  As the boy dashed out of the room Pearce wondered, not for the first time, about a service that entrusted so much to people so young: had he died or been incapacitated in that explosion, a lad like Niven would have taken command and, no doubt, have done his duty. He was also aware that his head was throbbing like the devil, but that had to be set aside.

  ‘Heinrich, I need some dry clothing and I want the use of anything that can pass as a weapon down to the meanest broom handle. Meanwhile, make sure everyone we do not take with us is ready to leave, for when that ship arrives we must embark with haste, lest the French come on our tail when we spike the cannon and abandon the redoubt.’

  ‘They will not harm the wounded, surely?’

  ‘When it comes to the Revolution,’ Pearce replied grimly, for he had had more experience of its terrors than most, ‘I would not want to discount any barbarity.’

  Midshipman Toby Burns, not much older than Niven, sat alone in the midshipman’s berth of HMS Britannia, noting the passing of time through several bells, alternately fingering the despatch he had been given to convey and the bandage he still wore around his head. Handed to him by Admiral Sir William Hotham in person, he wondered at the quietly delivered order that went with the written communication, the intimation that it was not to be immediately delivered.

  He knew what it contained, given he had been present when the admiral dictated the contents to his clerk: an instruction to the commander of HMS Hinslip, an empty transport presently lying no more than a cable’s length from the flagship, to proceed to the St Mandrier Peninsula and once there to take off combatants and non-combatants alike. It was that which was said afterwards, when the clerk had departed the great cabin, that hinted at trouble.

  ‘It would be best, Mr Burns, if this were delayed for several hours. I trust you will see to it.’

  Toby Burns could still sense Hotham’s breath on his cheek as the admiral leant close to whisper those words. The look in Hotham’s eye, when he stepped back again, was one that implied Burns would understand the need, but he was not absolutely sure he did and that rendered him fearful. Not the brightest of young men, he nevertheless knew, even if he could not discern the purpose, when he was being used. He also worried that someone would enter this berth and ask what the devil he was doing here skulking, given every other midshipman in the fleet had been sent away and was now occupied in some harrowing duty to do with the evacuation.

  Quickly he checked his bandage again, to ensure it had not slipped from his head; it would be fatal if anyone saw there was no wound beneath. The subterfuge was necessary, given Toby Burns carried a hero’s reputation gained when this new war was barely two months old. He knew only too well it was based on false evidence, indeed it was a status that had come to hang like a weight around his neck: he was expected to be brave and reckless when in truth he shied away from conflict of any kind. There was a brief flash of anger as he imagined himself telling Sir William Hotham to do his own dirty work, but that did not last: dread of a tongue-lashing resurfaced all too speedily.

  Locked in his own gloom, he dreamt, as he had for months, of being free of the King’s Navy. Before joining, sea service was something he had seen in the romantic light in which it was always portrayed: how different the reality from the tales with which he had grown up, of glory and pride in naval service within England’s wooden walls. He only had to look around the grubby berth – this being a flagship – an overcrowded home to twenty-four midshipman, had only to smell the bilge that permeated the whole ship, to recoil from the rats that infested the lower decks or eat the monotonous diet and reflect on the character of the men he shared it with, be they mids, officers or ratings, to know the depth and inaccuracy of the myth.

  The screen that shut off the berth from the Orlop deck was pulled back and there stood another vision to render worthless any romance: the skinny young urchin who went by the title of mess steward. A youngster who never went on deck unless ordered and certainly avoided fresh air when it rained, he was as black as ever with the filth that covered him from head to foot, dirt ingrained into his very pores.

  ‘What the devil do you want?’ Burns demanded, in a harsh tone, for, if he was fearful of those who were his naval or physical superiors, he was not one to show any kindness to a creature below him in the pecking order.

  ‘Now’t,’ the lad replied, showing white uneven teeth that only accentuated his dirty face, a part of him only marginally cleaner than the sleeve with which he constantly wiped it.

  ‘Come to rummage, I daresay, while the berth is empty,’ Burns snapped. ‘Well, you can carry on for all I care, I have nothing left to steal, all my supposed shipmates having beaten you to it.’

  ‘I ain’t a fief,’ the lad protested. ‘I came to tidy.’

  ‘Then,’ Burns barked, standing up, ‘you are singular in this vessel.’

  ‘What is you about, ’en?’

  ‘None of your damned business,’ Burns said, pushing past him.

  Head down, angry and sick of this imposed prevarication, he made his way up to the main deck and along to the entry port, calling to the sixth lieutenant of the ship, the man on duty, that he required a boat.

  ‘Require, sir, require?’ Beddows enquired, with an arch expression. ‘What day is it that a midshipman requires from a commissioned officer?’

  ‘I carry a despatch…’

  ‘So you say, Burns,’ the officer growled, interrupting him. ‘But carrying a despatch, if indeed you are, does not mean you give up all manners and all courtesy to rank.’

  ‘I require a boat, sir.’

  ‘Better, young man, but I think I need a please, as well as a couple of fingers to your hat.’

  ‘And I think I must tell Admiral Hotham how much you facilitated his instructions.’

  Terrified of the words he had used, which due to his underlying anger had come out unbidden, Burns was about to apologise, but then he saw the change of expression on the sixth lieutenant’s face: it went from hauteur to fright in a flash.

  ‘You are on an errand for the admiral?’

  ‘I am,’ Burns replied, before adding, in a way that threw caution to the winds, ‘and a most pressing one that you delay, sir, at some peril to your position.’

  The feeling he had then, as Beddows rushed to call in a boat, manned by poor unfortunates obliged to lay off the ship in the cold and swell for this very eventuality, made him feel warm for the first time in an age. The sixth lieutenant might not outrank him by much – had he not been a midshipman himself until only a few months previously? – but he had the power to evoke the admiral, the ability to induce fear and that made him top dog. He almost cooed his next words.

  ‘I will be sure to tell Sir William how you reacted with such alacrity, sir, once you were appraised of his interest.’

  ‘Obliged, Mr Burns, much obliged.’

  ‘Damn it, what is the man about?’ yelled Lord Hood. Aimed at the captain of the fleet, Rear Admiral Hyde Parker, it had a terrible effect on young Mr Niven, who visibly began to shake in his shoes. ‘Part of the orders I gave at six bells this morning was to get HMS Hinslip to St Mandrier with all despatch. Everyone should be off the pe
ninsula by now!’

  Parker, round and smooth of face in contrast to his craggy, grey-haired superior, felt the need to look put out, yet he was far from that, this being just another example of Sir William Hotham, Lord Hood’s second-in-command, acting to thwart his superior’s wishes. As the administrative officer of the fleet he not only had onerous duties to perform in keeping it up to scratch, he was required to act as a lightning rod for the C-in-C.

  ‘God rot the fellow,’ Hood barked, before he cast an eye back to the shivering Niven. ‘What’s amiss with you, lad, got the ague?’

  ‘No, sir, begging your pardon, sir.’

  ‘Well, there’s something amiss with you.’

  ‘Perhaps he fears to be yelled at,’ said Parker.

  ‘Who’s yelling at him?’ Hood bellowed.

  ‘I suspect he thinks you are, milord.’

  ‘Stop shaking, lad, I don’t bite.’ Hood then furiously waved Pearce’s letter, his voice rising once more. ‘Excepting when a poltroon does his best to make a fool out of me.’

  ‘I think it would be best to act, milord. Loss of temper will not serve.’

  The eyebrows came down to a glower. ‘Mind yer manners, Parker, remember who you are addressing.’

  ‘Of course, milord,’ Parker replied, not in the least contrite.

  ‘You see what I have to put up with, lad?’ Hood asked a still-quivering Niven, his voice gruff but low. ‘No respect from men who should know better. I daresay you know how to obey an order. You eaten at all?’

  ‘Yes, sir, dinner, sir.’

  ‘Dinner, that was hours ago. See that chafing dish on the table yonder?’ The boy nodded, his eye drawn to the highly polished mahogany of a dining table, set with several silver dishes, one of which had a small candle underneath. ‘There’s sausages in there, French mind, and too full of garlic for my taste, but filling. Help yourself.’