A Divided Command (22 page)

Barclay then looked up at Gherson, his face creased with bewilderment. ‘It’s almost as if he has already discerned my intentions.’

There was no mystery there for his clerk, even if Ralph Barclay had never said openly what those were. His wife was in the Mediterranean and so was the scoundrel who had stolen her away. So that was where his employer wanted to be and Gherson quite favoured the notion too, it being a warm and generally benign station whereas the Channel, as had just been proven, was cold, wet and stormy.

There would be no independent cruising on this station either, which was the route to profit; the fleet would stay in Torbay and only go to sea if the French emerged, and having just been trounced two months previously that might be a long time in coming. Then there was the chance of confounding John Pearce, who would scarce expect the husband of his lover to turn up in the same waters. All in all, to a man to whom mischief came naturally, it promised to be interesting.

‘Would I be allowed to say, sir, that in matters of protecting his back, Lord Howe will be no fool.’

‘Aye! No doubt he saw bits of paper flooding the nation questioning his fitness to command, as well as demanding the real facts of his victory.’

Ralph Barclay lapsed into silence then as he conjured up an image of the doddery sixty-eight-year-old fuming as he sat in a tub of hot spring water seeking to ease his bones, for he was in full agreement with Gherson. Black Dick knew the pamphlet Gherson had produced was a threat – it had been intended as that – and Barclay was sure he would have heard by now the motion for several of his captains to demand a court to clear their names of the accusations of tardiness. That was something he would not welcome either, for it could not but tarnish the glory of his recent triumph.

‘Somehow he must be made aware of the mention I made of the grain convoy and the way he was being humbugged in my log.’

His clerk saw right away what his captain was driving at: if others were furious at Lord Howe, they did not have what Barclay possessed, which was written and timely information of his possible error of judgement. If that came out at a court martial it would carry massively more weight than mere pique at being passed over for a medal or recognition. Knowing that was possible, any man in his right mind would move to head it off.

‘Might I suggest a letter to the Duke of Portland, sir?’

‘Saying?’

‘I would suggest the tone should be a desire not to embarrass the government of which he is a part. Perhaps
a reference to the impossibility of serving under a commanding admiral who clearly has little faith in your abilities.’

‘And he might reply that I should give up my command.’

‘God forbid that, sir.’

‘Dammed right, Gherson.’

‘A reference to the time the vessels of the Mediterranean Fleet have been on station might prompt a thought that some are in need of replacement.’

If Ralph Barclay looked hard at his clerk then it was for effect; he was not surprised that the man had drawn the correct conclusions for, if he was as untrustworthy as a weasel, Gherson did not lack for low cunning. That he was engaged in minor peculations was also known, but Barclay accepted that; as long as it did not get out of hand, it could be tolerated and any replacement might steal even more.

‘It’s too obvious. You don’t know the man as do I. Insufferably arrogant would be the best description, so anything too pointed, anything that hints at manipulation, will only get his back up.’

‘Then you must make plain your desire to serve your country, added to questions about Lord Howe’s ability to act, given he is not even with his fleet, but taking the waters in Bath, which is unendurable to a man who craves to be at the enemy.’

‘Leaving Portland to draw his own conclusions?’

‘Precisely, sir.’

Ralph Barclay’s face darkened then as a host of thoughts filled his mind, none of them in the least bit pleasant, for he saw himself as a laughing stock. His wife gallivanting about the Mediterranean in the company of a man not her
husband was not a thing that would go unremarked. For a man to whom reputation was everything it was a blow almost beyond comprehension that such a state of affairs should come to pass and when he spoke his tone of voice reflected the fact.

‘As long as I can get to that bastard Pearce, Gherson! I swear I will see him strung up by his thumbs for the disgrace he has visited on me.’

No one aboard
HMS Larcher
had any doubt about the need to get to sea in a hurry; they had seen the captain’s lady over the side at the first sign of daylight and with some regrets, for she was popular and would be missed. Only the destination raised a question and that in the minds of the few who knew what and where Palermo was, as well as where it lay.

The knowledge of that destination port had only come about by luck; Michael had found out, by the merest fluke, when delivering Mrs Barclay and her sea chest to the
Sandown Castle
. The man welcoming her aboard, the captain he assumed, had loudly referred to the fact that with a good wind they would raise Palermo in a day and night, and once they had seen landed the passengers they were carrying, would up anchor and set course for a happy return to home shores.

The goodbye had been awkward for both the Irishman and his charge, for there could be none of the intimacy of close friends or relatives parting. All she could do was quietly
thank him for not seeking to persuade her to wait for the missing John Pearce, which Emily might well have done had she not already paid for her passage and in doing so pledged most of her money.

Michael did what was expected of him, he knuckled his forehead, added a polite wish for a good journey and made to get back into his boat. Only in his eyes could Emily discern his true feelings, which were of sadness. He was also dreading his friend coming back aboard, for he would not take the news with much grace, a supposition proved to be only too correct; if blame was not spoken of, it was, Michael could see, in the accuser’s expression.

‘It be a courtesy to let the harbour master know of our leaving, sir.’

That got Dorling a glare. ‘Bugger the harbour master – if he has eyes he will be well able to see.’

The reply that followed, another question, was put with some trepidation. ‘Courtesy signals, Your Honour?’

‘If I observe a man not hauling on rope or canvas to get as much speed on this tub as possible I will see the cat out of the bag for the first time in this commission.’

‘Didn’t need to go calling our barky a tub,’ whispered one of the carpenter’s mates to Brad Kempshall.

‘He’s in a rare passion and entitled to be. He don’t mean it.’

‘Better not,’ came the reply, ‘or he’ll need more’n a cat to keep the peace.’

It was hard to tell, looking around the busy deck, how many shared that sentiment; like all tars the men of
Larcher
had a pride in their ship. Such a feeling was a commonplace in the navy and in the merchant service as well, for the vessel
in which these men sailed was their home as well as their employ, and being a superstitious bunch, anything that implied it was less than the best was seen as tempting an unfeeling providence.

Pearce was like a showground flea, jumping about, seeking to aid men going about their tasks and generally being held to hinder more than help, added to which, for a man who usually addressed them with regard to their feelings, his shouting and bawling was causing them to avoid his eye. When he got in the way of the plucking up of the anchor, it fell to the only two common seamen aboard who knew him well enough to moan and to tell him to shift.

‘You ain’t helping, Capt’n,’ Charlie growled, giving Pearce a look that was close to a flogging offence.

Rufus was gentler in his rebuke. ‘Not unknown for a man to lose his leg if it gets caught in an anchor cable, Your Honour.’

It was that exaggerated courtesy from these two that stopped John Pearce from his bellowing interference, though he glared at them to let his Pelicans know that they had overstepped the mark. But that was all he did, before he went back to the tight space between the binnacle and the wheel that was his own preserve, there to fret uselessly as he saw the anchor fished and catted, then the first raised canvas catch the wind.

No one watching him could sense how much he was berating himself; he had stayed off the ship to indulge Sir William Hamilton and in the process had allowed Emily a chance to act on her own instincts, which he was sure he could have dissuaded her from had he been present. Now he had to catch this
Sandown Castle
, which should not be too
difficult, her being a merchantman, and then persuade her to come back on board
Larcher
.

‘Michael,’ he said, having taken a deep breath to calm himself, ‘join me in the cabin, if you please.’

The Irishman knew what was coming and was sure he had no answers that would satisfy the man posing the questions. Yet he did have the advantage that he would not need to seek to avoid a repeat of what Emily Barclay had said to him; they knew each other too well. For once, it was a conversation of a private nature conducted without reserve; John Pearce did not care if anyone heard, but he would have been gratified to observe, if he had been in a position to do so, that no one tried.

‘Mrs Barclay sees herself stuck in Naples and never seeing you, John-boy, and all alone as well, which I take leave to say I can see is not a happy prospect.’

‘I was in the process of seeking to ameliorate that.’

‘If you’re not going to talk in English I can make out, maybe I should talk in the Erse.’

‘I was trying to find her some form of companionship, so that if she stayed in Naples she would have company.’

It was the drop of the eyes that alerted O’Hagan to the doubtful nature of that response and he was on to it quick. ‘How so?’

John Pearce was not comfortable lying – not that he was incapable – and especially to those he considered friends, so the temptation to gild what had been a passing thought and turn it into a conversation sounded false in his ears; judging by the look Michael was giving him it was even less convincing to him.

‘Who is this Lady Hamilton?’

Pearce could see the doubts growing as he described her – it had been a mistake to start by saying she was a famous beauty and a one-time courtesan – as well as what had happened to elevate her to her present position as the wife of the British Ambassador. The more he described her the lower he could see he was sinking in his friend’s opinion, until finally Michael let fly his suspicions.

‘I have high hopes that you kept your breeches buttoned, John-boy?’

‘What do you take me for?’

‘Wouldn’t be the first time your prick had got you into hot water, as Rufus, Charlie and I know to our cost.’

That brought Pearce to the blush; his three companions had been sent to sea while he was dallying in London with a society lady who saw a newly minted hero and a handsome cove just made lieutenant as a fitting bedpost trophy. It had lasted but a few days but they had been vital to the Pelicans.

‘That was in the past,’ Pearce protested. ‘My intention was to introduce Lady Hamilton to Emily and ask her to take her under her wing.’

‘And this she agreed to?’

The reply was as angry as it needed to be to cover for embarrassment. ‘I never got the chance to ask.’

‘Can I say that Mrs Barclay took herself off out of concern for you?’

‘Then she has utterly failed in her purpose, Michael. But as a friend, can I ask you to tell me everything she said to you, for if I am going to change her mind I will need all the force I can muster?’

Back on deck, as he ran over what had been said in his cabin, Pearce found he could not fault Emily’s logic even if he was dismayed at her actions, for she had spoken naught but the plain truth. He had seen too much of the world to think of it as a place of compassion; life was, for most, as the philosopher Hobbes had said, nasty, brutish and short and nothing was as unforgiving as penury, which led to another conclusion: what was he fit for if not where he was now?

In travelling with his father there had been the vague allusion to the day he might need to think of an occupation – perhaps the law would serve, if the money could be found to article John to a solicitor – but circumstances had assured that, if he had been parentally tutored in Latin, Greek and the Classics, no conclusion was ever arrived at.

It was not something to discuss when sleeping in a barn for the night or, as was sometimes possible in high summer, under the stars. When he was enrolled in a school, the two were, for short periods, apart. Tomorrow was always a new town and a new audience needing to be told that they were being trodden on by authority and men who became rich on the back of their labours, a message sometimes well received, at others the response being sods of turf and worse. Even when still in one place, and that was rare, there had always been the fact that Adam Pearce would eventually move on.

By the time it became a more pressing matter, with a son approaching manhood, Adam and John Pearce were locked up in the Fleet Prison for the parental jibes at the government and the monarchy, trumped-up accusations certainly, but that did not deter the men in power from applying them. The gap between release and the flight to Paris was too short to even contemplate what might become of the younger of the pair.

Here he was on the deck of a ship, by what had to be seen to be a pure fluke, in command. That was a station he could happily occupy, though he found such things as the Sunday service trying, sticking to a reading of the Articles of War, but would it last? There had to be real doubt about that.

The circumstances that had got him his present position were unlikely to prevail for ever, more probable was that he would become an officer aboard a ship commanded by another – it had to be admitted perhaps a proper seaman like Henry Digby who had earned his rank. That could be tolerated but it was a shot of a long nature.

He had sailed with Digby to La Rochelle and the man had been good to him, seen that he was struggling and provided much help with the rudiments of seamanship and navigation; it would be wishing for the moon with anyone else and he would, no doubt, find himself exposed as unfit for his rank under another commander. So, should he leave the navy and should he tell Emily of his determination to do so as soon as he had delivered
Larcher
back to the fleet?

How was he to live at ease with a married woman? The notion of it being a sin did not feature with him but it would with Emily. Many times he had thought of telling her of his vague plan to use the evidence against her husband to force him into seeking a bill of divorce. Such a thing was horrendous in its expense and complexity and was only possible by the passage of a parliamentary statute annulling the Barclay marriage.

Ralph Barclay was, if not rich, well off and might see it as a proper use of his money to lay it out for the protection of his own reputation, but what would that expose Emily to? Leghorn would be as nothing to the opprobrium that
would be heaped on her in England by a society that lived off hypocrisy.

This took his mind back to Naples and the conversation he had had with Lady Hamilton in that arbour. Could he make something of himself there – he was not without enterprise – and live openly with Emily in a place where, if the ambassadress were right, no one would turn a hair?

John Pearce was a man who found it easy, sometimes too easy, to feel sanguine. He was also prone, once he had settled on a course of action, to see it as natural and obvious.
HMS
Larcher
would overhaul that lubberly merchant ship and he would go aboard and make his case to her.

‘Deck there, sail ho, dead ahead.’

They had to wait for what seemed an age until the lookout added that it was square-rigged and even longer to identify it, by its broad beam and steep tumblehome, as a merchant vessel.

‘We’ll know if it’s
Sandown Castle
within two bells, Your Honour, and overhaul her before the sun starts to dip.’

‘Thank you, Mr Dorling, and can I say, if I was short with you this morning, I apologise.’

‘Two more sail, on deck – two-masted, ten points off the larboard beam.’

Pearce had his coat off anyway, it being too hot to wear, so in a flash he had grabbed a telescope and made for the shrouds, his actions in climbing and the pace at which he achieved it getting approving nods from a crew proud to have a man in command who did not see it as beneath his pride to act so or to apologise, which had been overheard.

The man aloft moved so his captain could get a purchase on the crosstrees and begin to employ his eyeglass, then
there followed that natural hiatus until certain matters became clear. The two ships spotted had their prows aimed in the same direction as him, towards
Sandown Castle
, albeit they were closer, which naturally raised the spectre as to their purpose, and they were, from what he could make out, brigantines. Were they the same vessels he had seen on the way to Naples, for it was a common vessel in these waters? It was highly possible since they flew no flag that he could see.

As the hulls became visible on the swell it was possible to make out their gun ports, five a side and very likely there would be bow and stern chasers too, though that did nothing to indicate their calibre. The next thing to calculate was, if they were hostile, how quickly were they closing on what might be their quarry, and then what effect the sighting of
HMS Larcher
would have on their intentions.

Had the captain of Emily’s vessel spotted them, merchant vessels, with their crews the bare minimum in numbers, being notoriously slack in that department? From what he could discern, and it was far from positive,
Sandown Castle
was sailing easy. There was a fair amount of canvas aloft but not the suit of sails that would indicate they saw danger and needed to press on; that at least he could change.

‘Deck there, get one of the cannon loaded with powder and fire it off.’

He was half talking to himself as well as the lookout when he said, ‘If the sight of three unknown vessels in his wake does not get him spurring on, then nothing will.’

The sound of the booming cannon was faint but unmistakable and Captain Fleming, florid of face from having consumed a fair amount of wine, lifted his head slowly to register it. His
guests, passengers being entertained to luncheon, looked at him if not with alarm, certainly with curiosity, and seeing it as his duty to ensure that nothing troubled them, he spoke soothingly.