A Flag of Truce Read online

  ‘You know that Pearce wants a court martial,’ said Hood.

  ‘And do you intend to oblige him?’

  ‘Admiral Hotham, I cannot see, if he continues to press the matter, how I can refuse.’

  Being slow of response did not mean that William Hotham was not a deep thinker; indeed it was that quality which defined him. He was wondering, having been through something very similar before, if Hood was looking for the same solution, namely to off-load the problem onto him. He prided himself on his ability to extrapolate from a given set of circumstances and to see the possible lines of consequence. Also, he knew where he stood in the scheme of things at home. Hood did not want to distress him, quite unaware that by his attitude up till now he had more than done so, a fact which had gone home in every letter Hotham had written to people of his own political persuasion.

  But did he want what was being offered, and would Hood use it against him to show that he was prepared to protect someone like Ralph Barclay, even if it was clear he was possibly in the wrong? What was vexing was the fact that he needed to protect him; all of those captains who looked to him for advancement knew he had taken Barclay under his wing. They had dined at the Hotham table and seen for themselves the connection, no doubt more interested in the way it reflected on their own standing than on the mere fact of it being so. If he let Barclay down he would be diminished in their eyes, and that was an unwelcome thought.

  For a quick-witted and decisive creature like Samuel Hood, watching Hotham’s dawdling mental process was torture. He knew that silence was best, and it was as if his whole body was itching as impatience took over. ‘I was wondering if you could see any way out of this dilemma.’

  ‘I think, Lord Hood, you wish for me to continue to handle this problem.’

  ‘I wish for your opinion, sir,’ Hood lied.

  Ten agonising seconds elapsed before Hotham gave it. ‘I will make no secret of my feelings, sir. That a poltroon like Pearce can traduce the reputation of a brave and competent officer fills me with rage. Yet, he cannot, as you have admitted, be denied his court martial. So, let it be, and let us work as hard as we may to prove that the accusation against Captain Barclay is false.’

  ‘Then,’ Hood said, trying to hide his relief, ‘I leave the matter in your capable hands. You may set the date and choose the officers to sit in judgement on the case. When you have your verdict, I will, of course, confirm whatever the court decides.’

  John Pearce had not expected to run into Emily Barclay at the hospital, and in doing so now, there was that same frisson of awkwardness which had attended their last encounter, though he tried to cover that with a warm smile. She was dressed in a white pinafore, her hair pinned back under a mob cap, yet was still strikingly good looking; the young face fresh, the unpowdered cheeks rosy, and her eyes alight with appeal. Pearce experienced the same feeling he had when he had first clapped eyes on her on the deck of HMS Brilliant, when coming aboard as a pressed man. Then his smile vanished as he recalled the blow from her husband such attention had earned him.

  ‘Mrs Barclay,’ he said, with a slight bow that covered his frown.

  She gave a minimal curtsy, thinking that the presence of this man disturbed her, for it raised not only memories of a serious marital dispute, but thoughts regarding her husband that she had been able to bury these last few weeks, thoughts that her spouse was not as upright and honest as he should be. It was difficult to know what to say.

  ‘Lieutenant Pearce. Would I be permitted to ask after your arm?’

  Lutyens had been seeing to that wound on the last occasion they met; it would be bravado to mention the other one. ‘Quite mended, madam, and entirely free from any putrescence. I take it, by your attire, you are assisting Mr Lutyens?’

  The slight laugh made Pearce’s extremities tingle. On that cold wet day off Sheerness, with the River Thames grey and miserable at his back, he had found it easy to imagine paying court to such a pretty creature, and it was just as effortless to rekindle that here and now.

  ‘I fear I may often be more of a hindrance to our good surgeon than a help.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ That sharp rebuke came not from John Pearce but from Heinrich Lutyens, standing in the doorway, his eyebrows well aloft, his long nose also raised in his fish-like face. ‘You raise the spirits of the men, Mrs Barclay, and that does more for their condition than any ministrations of mine. Do not think I do not see their faces cloud as I approach.’

  Both John Pearce and Emily Barclay had an awkward moment then; every patient treated by Lutyens had a similar experience, generally a painful one. He was not cack-handed exactly, just distracted and indifferent, having often stated that the physical aspects of medicine held little of interest to him. His patients could not agree, and he always gave them cause to feel their opinion.

  ‘John Pearce, you are returned.’

  ‘And in one piece.’

  Lutyens indicated the sea outside the windows, now bright blue and less disturbed. ‘One of my patients, an ambulant fellow, pointed out the approach of your ship. I am given to understand that, according to your flags, you have suffered both a tragic loss and victory over our enemies.’

  ‘The first ill-fortune, the second the opposite, of which I am the beneficiary.’

  ‘We will take coffee together, and you may tell me all. Mrs Barclay, will you join us?’

  She blushed bright red, nailing her reply as an excuse. ‘I fear I cannot. I am expected, indeed I would be surprised if the boat my husband sends for me is not waiting at this very moment.’

  As if to emphasise that she began to untie the knot at the rear of her pinafore. Lutyens, with a look of passive acceptance for an obvious untruth, just nodded. Being the surgeon of her husband’s frigate, a man who had witnessed the confrontation of John Pearce and Ralph Barclay and who had also heard of the words exchanged at their last meeting, he knew only too well why she had declined. Both sets of male eyes followed her as she scurried out of the room, and had they been honest with each other, they might have admitted to similar thoughts.

  ‘Poor creature,’ said Lutyens softly.

  ‘Why so?’ asked Pearce.

  The surgeon half smiled. ‘That is for me to know and you to ponder. Now let us have that pot of coffee and your tale. A battle did you have?’ Pearce nodded. ‘Then I am particularly interested in your impression of the behaviour of the crew. I wish to compare it with my own recent experiences.’

  John Pearce decided to keep quiet about the ball that had grazed his arm to Lutyens as well; given his method of treatment, it was less painful that way.

  It was an hour before the boat arrived to take Emily Barclay back to HMS Brilliant, an hour in which she had fretted that she might again meet with John Pearce, an hour in which she knew it was an encounter she would have to keep secret from her husband. It was therefore truly unfortunate that one of the two people rowing her boat was a fresh-faced youth with a half-broken voice called Martin Dent, doubly so that Pearce came into sight, walking the shore with Lutyens in deep conversation, as the boat made its landfall. The cry of the name filled the air, and spotting not only Martin but several other familiar faces, Pearce walked down to the small jetty to which the boat had been tied up.

  ‘Well, Martin, you are still whole?’

  ‘But too stupid to address you proper,’ said the man next to him, a bosun’s mate called Costello. ‘If’n the captain was here he’d flay him.’

  ‘I heard you was wearing a blue coat these days,’ said Martin. ‘Though the how is a mystery.’

  The sight of Emily Barclay had done it, and Martin Dent had the same effect; it took him back to what had happened at the beginning of the year. Here, greeting him like a long-lost brother was a youngster who had at one time tried to kill him, and who, he had no doubt, had been the cause of the death of another. In the dress of a marine drummer, Martin had been one of the party who had taken up him and the others, men who became his friends of necessity, from that Thameside
tavern, the Pelican. Even on a warm day, in bright sunlight, surrounded by blue sea and the smell of burnt earth and sweet flowers, he could imagine himself back in that smoke-filled tavern. The faces of those with whom he had sought to evade the press-gang swam before his eyes, especially Abel Scrivens, Martin Dent’s victim. Then there was Ben Walker, the sixth member of his original mess, who had been washed overboard from HMS Brilliant in an encounter with a Barbary pirate ship; he would be alive today without his being pressed. Yet Martin had changed, had seen the error of his ways, had even apologised, and that was the fellow he addressed now.

  ‘I fear, Martin, in public, you will have to touch your forelock if you spy me, but do not ever do so when no other officer is present, or I will be the one to flay you.’

  ‘Should you have a ship, Pearce, it would be good to serve under you.’

  ‘Do not, Martin, pin any hopes on that, and don’t be so sure that service under me will be so pleasant.’

  ‘You won’t use the cat, Pearce. You was one of us.’

  ‘Excuse me, Lieutenant.’

  Pearce stood aside to let Emily pass, then proffered his hand to help her down into the boat, something she could hardly refuse. The tingle that ran up his arm was as strange as it was noticeable, and he wondered if, under a wide straw sun-hat hiding her face, she had experienced the same. There was no way of knowing; she kept her face turned away, even when, in a moment of inspiration, he asked Cortello if he could cadge a lift across to the other side of the bay. The favour granted and his sea-chest aboard, the youngster, all bright eyes and excitability, managed to embarrass Pearce, intrigue Emily Barclay and bore the already aching arses off his fellow sailors, who had heard the tale a dozen times before, as he recounted how he and his old mate had once taken a whole merchant ship from under the noses of John Crapaud.

  ‘I think you are forgetting, Martin,’ Pearce said eventually, in an attempt to shut him up, ‘that there were others present.’

  ‘They don’t signify to my mind, especially that toad Burns.’

  ‘My nephew?’ said Emily, surprised. ‘Why do you call him a toad?’

  Martin Dent would have loved to have told her he was worse; he was a cowardly rat and even then he did not know the mention of the name to John Pearce was inclined to make his blood boil. Toby Burns was a deceitful little bastard who had abandoned him to a second impressment within sight of the south coast of England. Much as he would have liked to say so, he could no more condemn the little swine with his aunt in earshot than could Martin Dent, who was obliged to emit an unconvincing apology.

  ‘Slip of the tongue, mam. Term of affection really.’

  ‘Shall we drop you off at the end of the mole, Lieutenant?’ asked Emily.

  The voice had a tremor which had Pearce wondering at the reason. While his mind alighted on the possibility of attraction, hers was centred on the truth. For whatever reason, if her husband saw this officer in his ship’s boat, he would have a seizure.

  ‘Obliged,’ said Pearce, as he scrambled ashore, taking a slippery green ladder up the wall of the mole, his dunnage following. ‘Perhaps we may meet again.’

  For the first time he heard her being sharp. ‘I fear it is unlikely, Lieutenant Pearce.’

  ‘Take care, Martin.’

  ‘You too, Pearce.’

  The frigate, fully repaired from the battle in which she had been forced to strike her colours, lay in the inner harbour and her husband had moved them both back on board as soon as he could, happier, as he insisted, to pace his own planking than stay on in the tower in which they had been incarcerated as prisoners. He saw the boat approach and hurried down the gangplank to the quayside so he could assist his wife in climbing the ladder from boat to shore. Even after nearly a year of marriage, each time he saw Emily he still felt the need to pinch himself at his good fortune, which was not a thing he had enjoyed much favour from in his life. Deep down, he knew that for his wife, duty was part of their nuptials, an entailed property that would have seen her parents and the rest of her family displaced from if he had enforced his rights. But she was still a wonder to Ralph Barclay; beautiful, mainly dutiful, barring the odd squabble, and a positive asset in his dealing with his fellow officers. Not greeted by the habitual warm smile, he was taken aback at the pursed lips and unfocused look on his wife’s face as she steadied herself on the quay.

  ‘My dear, you look peaked. I do hope Lutyens has not been working you too hard.’

  Emily was still thinking about the events of the morning; of the sudden appearance of John Pearce, and the unpleasant thoughts regarding her husband’s honesty in the days immediately before Lord Hood took over the port. Then there was the tale told by Martin Dent in the rowboat, of the taking of that merchant vessel from a Breton port, which differed substantially from that which had been told to her right after the action by her nephew, Toby Burns. And why had Martin Dent called him a toad?

  ‘We shall have a capital dinner to cheer you up, Mrs Barclay,’ her husband said, in a hearty voice designed to lift her spirits. ‘And I have invited young Burns to join us. You two may talk family to your hearts’ content.’

  That the thought had the opposite effect to that intended was made obvious by the deep frown which swept across Emily Barclay’s face.

  Chapter Four

  Elphinstone’s headquarters were at the citadel, the main bastion inside the Vauban defences, the well-ordered and designed buildings around it standing in stark contrast to the confusion that reigned outside the walls. It seemed he was responsible for the defence of the eastern sector and parties of marines and sailors lay about, each seeking shade from the sun, looking listless and disengaged, this while officers, both French and British, scuttled about, seemingly to no purpose, if you discounted that each seemed to carry in their hands written orders of some kind.

  Once inside the citadel, Pearce was hard put to find anyone who could tell him why he was here and what he was required to do, though he did find that the officers had set up a mess, and being provisioned by the French it was well stocked with both food and wine. So, in the absence of orders he made up for what he had missed by treating himself to a good dinner. It was when he came to bedding down, a need that took him right into the heart of the headquarters, that he ran into the first real problem.

  ‘Go back to your ship, sir, like everyone else,’ said a weary-looking civilian clerk.

  ‘I do not have a ship.’

  The clerk looked at him as if he had said he lacked a mother. ‘If you have no ship, sir, I am at a loss to know how you got here.’

  ‘I was relieved of my duties aboard HMS Weazel this morning.’

  ‘HMS Weazel, sir. Did I hear you right when you said Weazel?’

  The voice was strong, definitely Scottish, if of the refined sort, and when he turned Pearce knew, just by the man’s presence, that he was important. The grey hair was curled and fine, the eyes were penetrating in a face that probably wore, most often, a disapproving scowl, though it was more a look of deep curiosity now. He also had, on his blue coat, the twin epaulettes of a Post Captain of three years’ seniority.

  ‘I did, sir. I had the honour to command her in the recent action off Corsica, after the unfortunate death…’

  The interruption was sharp. ‘Of that drunken oaf, Benton.’

  ‘He was brave as well, sir,’ Pearce snapped, ‘and it does not become any fellow officer, of whatever rank, to speak ill of him now he’s been killed.’

  ‘You would not, you insolent pup, be trying to put me in ma place?’ The smile on the man’s face was at odds with the words; he was clearly amused by the notion. ‘You will be Adam Pearce’s boy? Hood spoke of you.’

  ‘I am, sir, and proud of it!’

  ‘My, that’s a sharp rejoinder, laddie. There’s no need to be ashamed of your bloodline, even if the man named was a damned menace.’ Seeing Pearce begin to well up in defence, the Post Captain carried on quickly. ‘But I’ll no damn a fellow for his antecedents,
man. If I did, an Elphinstone would have to stab half the population of Scotland on sight, since we have been at odds with every one of them at some time in the last few hundred years. So, boy, I will treat you as one of my ain, till you show me I am amiss.’

  Not sure how to respond, Pearce said. ‘I was enquiring about a berth, being now without a ship.’

  ‘Och, we will soon sort that out, laddie, will we not Myers?’

  Elphinstone was looking past Pearce to the now flustered clerk, who stammered his reply. ‘We can board him on a local family, sir, but not at such short notice without we cause upset.’

  ‘Then make sure it is a good one. Tonight, Pearce, you can rest your heid here in the citadel. Happen tomorrow we will find you something to do.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Have you dined?’

  ‘Yes, sir, and most handsomely.’

  ‘Then you can sit with me as I take my dinner and tell me all about your wee skirmish.’

  It was only when they had moved from wine to brandy, a very fine brew from the Armagnac region, that they left the subject of the Navy, captains over-indulging in drink and battles, to move on to the subject of Adam Pearce.

  ‘I met him long before you were born, when he was a young and I a stripling of a midshipman,’ said Elphinstone. ‘Edinburgh is a small place in the social sense, and he was a bright man making his way. I think it was Boswell who introduced us but it could have been the father of Malthus, the dour fiscal philosopher, who was visiting Scotland.’

  ‘And how, sir, did you find him?’

  ‘I told you, laddie, a damned nuisance with his ravings, but an amusing one. Much more so than those who still hankered after that Popish fool of a Stuart.’ Seeing Pearce raise an eyebrow, Elphinstone added, ‘Don’t imagine their dreams died in ’45, laddie. They see their erstwhile king as a romantic hero, instead of what he really was, a wine-sodden fop with nothing in his gonads but water.’