Blown Off Course Page 3

  ‘The other warrants will agree?’ he asked.

  The bosun, master-at-arms and the cook had gone ashore to carouse in the taverns on Portsmouth Point; the others who had acted as warrants, on a ship so long at sea, had been temporary promotions by the captain, so, not being Navy Board appointments, they had lost their places as soon as she dropped anchor.

  ‘Can’t see why they would not,’ the master replied.

  ‘Food for a week, and what Charlie said besides, some coin as well as your boat, or on the blood of the Blessed Mary those marines of yours will be carrying us to a new ship and you lot in a foursome of pine boxes to the churchyard.’

  A huge Irish fist was slowly raised to make his point.

  ‘Well said, Michael,’ added Charlie Taverner.

  ‘It best be done peaceful, like,’ murmured the gunner.

  ‘Easy for you,’ the purser cried, recovering some of his ire. ‘The price is not coming from your pocket.’

  ‘Nor will it be coming from yours, you slimy goat, you’ll just be givin’ away some of the monies you fiddled from them poor dumb Lascars on the way home from Bengal.’

  ‘Take that back or so help me …’

  The man stepped right up to the purser, who was by no means the shape of a fighting man, while the gunner was a short and grizzled veteran, nut-coloured from Eastern service, who had served in king’s ships man and boy. ‘What will you do, turd?’

  ‘Enough,’ the master called. ‘We are not like to see these poor fellows troubled, so we has no choice but to give them what they need, without grumbling, and rely on Mr Pearce to make good on his promise to pay.’

  There was little time for what was required: the cutting of pigtails that had taken months to grow, the preparation of old, lightweight canvas from worn sailcloth, which Michael insisted they must, with needle and thread, turn into clothing that would not only keep foul weather off their head and backs, but stop them being immediately identified as tars. The slop ducks they already wore had to be narrowed: pigtails aside, nothing screamed ‘sailor’ like wide-bottomed leg wear. Ditty bags were sewn too, with a skill that came easily to Rufus, once an apprentice in the leather trade, much less so to Charlie and Michael, who bled many times from needle pricks.

  The ditty bags had to be big enough to carry food, like chunks of portable soup, salt fish, spare shirts, stockings, lye soap, shaving kit and shore-going footwear. The work carried on into the gloom of twilight until it was complete and, in darkness, equipped as best they could, they went over the side, took the oars and, using the lights of the town as a guide, steered away from the dockyard along the Southsea shore to the sound of the tide beating against the shingle.

  ‘And how in God’s name,’ demanded Rufus Dommet, when darkness fell, ‘is John Pearce goin’ to find us?’

  ‘We have to find him, Rufus,’ Charlie replied. ‘And damn quick.’

  ‘So there you have the story, Mr Winston. I, like the others from this benighted place, was trussed and taken downriver, the frigate weighed from Sheerness within a day, and I have to tell you that, if it is damned difficult to get off any ship, it is rendered impossible once they are at sea.’

  ‘This Ralph Barclay sounds like a rum cove I must say,’ Winston said. ‘Not that the navy is short of his type.’

  Pearce shook his head. ‘The pity is he is not the worst, sir. There are those who see him as lenient. Besides that, malice is endemic, for I must tell you my companions and I have been pressed not once, but twice.’

  Winston’s eyebrows shot up. ‘That, sir, is singular. Am I to assume Barclay to be at the seat of that also?’

  ‘Yes, but he had help from a slimy little toad, a midshipman and relation of his called Toby Burns.’

  ‘Who is surely worth another bumper,’ Winston replied, signalling for a refill. ‘And I am agog to hear more of this Barclay fellow as well as what you observed in Paris. I am a man of business and a first-hand account of the events in that benighted city will be a rare treat indeed.’ The break into French was unexpected, but it made Pearce smile. ‘Voulez-vous prend un autre boire, avec moi?’

  Pearce replied, amused by the less-than-perfect French, but far too polite to correct it. ‘Le même, s’il vous plaît.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  It was by a fortuitous accident that John Pearce missed Ralph Barclay at the Admiralty, for had they met there would have been blood on the walls. True to his nature, on entering the same anteroom, Barclay was brusque with everyone present, they being strangers. Also, given he had lost his left arm at Toulon, while making it plain the wound had yet to fully heal – the ligature left in the wound had yet to come free – his demand that a lieutenant surrender a comfortable seat on one side of the fireplace had to be acceded to, that following on from his loud admonition to the footman who had shown him in to take care to let Mr Stephens know he came with the blessing of the Duke of Portland. It was his way of telling those waiting that he did not lack for interest in the matter of seeking employment: he was merely here to find out what ship he would be given.

  For all the discourtesy of his entry and manner, such was the way of the navy, where grovelling to senior officers was very necessary, every lieutenant present was eager to engage him in conversation, especially since, with such a potent aristocratic connection, he would soon have a command: he was, after all, a post captain with the twin epaulettes of three years in the rank and he had seen action.

  When they enquired on such matters they found themselves addressing a man eager to recount his adventures, as well as to air his prejudices: for the former, that led to boasts of prizes taken, a single ship action which, though ending in a defeat, he managed to make sound like a triumph, that followed by his unflattering opinion of the man who held the Mediterranean Command, Vice Admiral Samuel Lord Hood.

  ‘His Lordship made a singular mess at Toulon,’ he insisted. ‘He should have listened to the wiser counsel of Sir William Hotham. Now, there was a man who had the right of it.’

  That had the other post captain present, an elderly fellow who had seemed to be asleep, opening his eyes and sitting slightly forward: a man of Barclay’s rank did not lightly traduce an admiral of the status and reputation of Sam Hood without good cause. It was not necessary to say to these fellows that Ralph Barclay was a client officer of Hotham, Lord Hood’s second in command, or that he was unlikely to be well regarded by the C-in-C himself; they understood without explanation the nuances of what was being said and so they should, for it was their world. If Hotham were being praised he would be this fellow’s patron; anyone who did not have regard for Barclay would be damned.

  ‘And I told the noble duke of Hood’s error of judgement in no uncertain terms.’ That was accompanied by a hard look to ensure they identified which particular peer he was talking about. ‘I daresay Mr Pitt has had his ears burnt already on that matter, given the government depends on support from the Portland faction to properly prosecute the war.’

  Explanation, of necessity, had to follow; Barclay had set the scene, while underlining the depth of his own interest. Hood, he insisted, had made a bad bargain with the French in Toulon, not insisting that the Royalist-leaning officers surrender the huge naval base and their ships, instead granting them the status of allies and allowing them to keep control of their powerful fleet.

  ‘We should have seized the port, gentlemen, which was in such turmoil it could not have been defended, but did we? We should have towed out what ships we fancied and immediately burnt the rest, blocking the harbour with wrecks, but did we? We had no need to land and seek to hold the place when destruction would have served our purpose just as well.’

  His listeners knew these enquiries to be rhetorical so none bothered to answer. Everyone present would have read the Naval Gazette and the London newspapers; in short, they would be au fait with the details of the failure to hold on to Toulon, despite help from Naples, Piedmont and Spain, with Hood landing every man he could spare from his fleet. The siege
had lasted for five months, the forces of the French Revolution bloodily determined to take back the main French naval port in the Mediterranean.

  In the end, Hood had been forced to abandon the place, taking off as many refugees as he could – nowhere near the number seeking to flee the guillotine and Jacobin revenge. Thousands had died in retribution for their lack of revolutionary zeal and, to cap it all, the destruction of those warships that could not be manned and sailed out had only been partial; in short, given sailors to crew them, the French still had a powerful fleet.

  ‘It is said, sir,’ advanced a very junior lieutenant, ‘that the Spaniards let us down in the matter of destruction. They did not set alight those ships allotted to them.’

  Barclay snorted. ‘Only because an old fool who should have been beached long ago gave them opportunity to do so.’

  Being by nature a touch insensitive, even Ralph Barclay could see what these fellows tried to disguise: to call into question the ability of one the nation’s best admirals was within the bounds of normal discourse – no two sailors ever entirely agreed on a command appointment or a chosen course of action. To call the same man an old fool and past it was coming it very high indeed. He had gone too far; time, Ralph Barclay knew, to recover some ground.

  ‘I have nothing but admiration for Lord Hood and I say he stands high enough in my estimation to not be shamed by comparison to the greatest naval officer it has been my privilege to serve.’ The pause was just long enough to tickle their curiosity. ‘I refer, of course, to Admiral Lord Rodney.’

  That met the stony-faced acceptance politeness demands, for once more this captain was nailing his partisan colour to the mast. Clearly he had previously been a client officer of the late George Brydges Rodney, an admiral about whom opinion was much divided: a great fighting sailor yes, but a man with a reputation for being a touch free with the notion of lining his pockets as well as playing ducks and drakes with the rules of the service: had he not tried to make his son a post captain aged just twelve years, had he not raided and emptied the rich warehouses of Tortuga merely to get his hands on the value therein? It was also well known that Rodney and Sam Hood, when serving together in the Caribbean, had quarrelled a great deal; Hood insisting personal greed had proved a greater motivation to Rodney than service to his king and country.

  ‘But age, sirs,’ Barclay added with great emphasis, ‘has come to addle Lord Hood’s thinking, as it must come to any fellow in his eighth decade. Sir William Hotham, by contrast, is still in his prime and as clear-sighted as a man of his rank needs to be.’

  King George’s Navy was like a club, one in which gossip was the stuff of life; indeed, John Pearce had been wont to say that no fishwife need fear comparison with a group of naval officers gathered to discuss their peers. It being their profession, they lived in its rumour-driven web, talked when they were gathered and wrote to each other when not, while in doing so, never failing to air their partialities. In the face of this piece of blatant embroidery, the gathered lieutenants murmured as if in agreement. It was the old fellow on the opposite side of the fireplace who spoke now. Being himself of equal rank he felt no need to defer to opinions with which he did not agree.

  ‘I had a letter from my good friend, Captain Elphinstone, sir, whom I am sure you must have encountered at Toulon.’

  ‘I had that good fortune, yes,’ Barclay replied guardedly: Elphinstone was a creature of Hood’s and not a man he considered a friend.

  ‘I am bound to say he was full of praise for Lord Hood and his attempt to hold Toulon. He was also of the opinion the government had let Hood down by not sending forth the soldiers he required and which he asked for, and that, had they obliged, it might have been possible to inflict such a defeat of the Jacobins as to render the whole of France vulnerable; in short, to bring to an end the war. I am bound to say I respect Captain Elphinstone’s opinions, sir, and most markedly did so when he was my premier.’

  ‘Sir,’ Barclay replied, for the first time speaking guardedly, ‘we are not, I think, acquainted.’

  ‘Rawlinson.’

  This set Ralph Barclay thinking hard: he knew the captain’s list as others know their psalms and he searched his memory for the name. Of some four hundred and fifty in total, Ralph Barclay’s greatest interest was in the top of that list, to which one day he hoped he would rise, and the name, added to the man’s great age, supplied the clue that fixed his position. Barclay was in the top quarter, this captain was at the very apex and it was clear, given the determined look in his eye, the old fellow was willing to carry his disagreement all the way to argument, which might prove unpleasant. Barclay temporised.

  ‘Captain Rawlinson, I am surprised you have not yet been given your flag.’

  ‘I am close to that honour, sir, though it scarce credits a man to want it too much …’

  Balderdash, Ralph Barclay thought. I want an admiral’s flag more than anything in creation.

  ‘… given,’ Captain Rawlinson continued, ‘that it requires men of my own age or above to expire before I can be so elevated. You see, Captain Barclay, I was somewhat advanced in years when I was made post myself, but to wish for the death of others would not aid me when my own time comes. I would aspire to meet my Maker with as pure a heart as I can muster, so if I go to my grave lacking the elevation to an admiral’s rank, so be it.’

  ‘Your flag, sir,’ said that very junior lieutenant, a gleam in his eye. ‘What a fine thing it must be. I cannot believe it is not something to be craved.’

  Rawlinson produced a sad smile. ‘It is a mere title in my case, young man, since, unless I can this day persuade the Board I can be of use, it will likely be a yellow pennant.’

  ‘But the pay, sir,’ the youngster blurted out, before blushing, given it was a crude allusion.

  That was not the only thing to cause the kind of embarrassment that led to an avoidance of the old fellow’s eye. Topping the captain’s list at the next round of promotions, he would get a rear admiral’s rank and the rise in pay that went with it – a stipend he would hold till the day he died. But ‘yellow’ admirals were granted no command: the navy took great care to ensure the competence of those granted control of its fleets and it required influence to be granted any of the other numerous appointments in the Admiralty gift.

  The conclusion was plain: as an officer Captain Rawlinson had probably pursued an undistinguished career. In that time he had failed to make important connections in the service or politics and, while no doubt competent, did not impress those who ran the navy with his powers of command. If it was not an uncommon state of affairs – there were many more yellow admirals than active ones, just as there were more captains than vessels for them to command – it was rare to have it openly stated.

  ‘Yet I have hope,’ Rawlinson added, with a wan smile, ‘that I might be gainfully employed in some capacity, hence my presence here among we supplicants.’

  Ralph Barclay was about to protest he was better than a mere supplicant when the footman intoned his name from the doorway, adding. ‘Admiral Gardner will see you now.’

  Barclay nodded happily as he rose to exit: he was about to see the most senior of the present naval lords, Hood, the other, being absent. Added to that, Alan Gardner, in charge of appointments to ships, had been a client of Rodney, so he was assured of a warm reception. The same words made old Rawlinson sigh and recline once more in his chair, eyes closing, as they had been when Barclay first entered the room. He had been passed over yet again, underlining just how low were his chances of success.

  Midshipman Toby Burns had decided some time past that Admiral Sir William Hotham was trying to get him killed by continually putting him in danger. The reason was clear even to dim Toby, who was not well blessed in the article of discernment, and it all had to do with his uncle by marriage, Captain Ralph Barclay. In a piece of chicanery to which Hotham had been an active accomplice, a charge of illegal impressment brought by the pestilential John Pearce had been seen off by
a farce of a court martial, held in Toulon, undertaken when the main litigants and their damning evidence were safely out of the way, en route to the Bay of Biscay.

  Serving aboard his uncle’s frigate and in utter terror of the man, Toby Burns had become the chief witness, primed to lie through his teeth that he had been present at the taking of John Pearce and his stupidly named Pelicans, when in fact he had been nowhere near the Liberties of the Savoy on the night in question. Hotham had seen to it that none of the contrary written depositions were introduced and had staffed the court with officers he could trust, both in the presentation of the evidence and in the concluding judgement; Ralph Barclay had thus suffered nothing more than a mild rebuke.

  Such an outcome had not brought the youngster security – quite the opposite. Now serving in Hotham’s flagship, HMS Britannia, and apparently much cosseted by the admiral – his fellow midshipmen, though never in his hearing, called him the admiral’s bum boy – he had been sent more than once, on the excuse of providing him with opportunity to distinguish himself, into deadly situations, the irony being that those with whom he now shared his shipboard accommodation were ravaged with jealousy at what they saw as his good fortune.

  In Toulon he had faced death or mutilation in the action in which his uncle had lost his arm. At San Fiorenzo, the most northern anchorage in Corsica, Hotham had selected him to help lead ashore the boats carrying the marines to the beach and there he had seen his superior, a lieutenant, end up with a smashed leg. Now he was on a land expedition and had spent the last three days trudging up and through the Teghime Pass, still in the grip of winter, cold and snowbound at this altitude, as part of the so-called liaison with the troops of General Dundas seeking to take the French town of Bastia, helping to haul the naval cannon provided to aid the assault.