A Shot Rolling Ship (14 page)

‘They do when they are to be hosted by someone as beautiful as you, my dear.’

Emily, who had her husband’s arm, squeezed it. He was not often given to that kind of flattery, being too stiff in himself for raillery, and it was true that the one he had just uttered was due to the fact that he had drunk quite copiously, but it was welcome nevertheless. She too, though
nowhere near inebriated, had a warm glow from the wines she had consumed. Let others doubt the wisdom of her marrying a man so many years her senior, and yes there had been an element of family duty in it, but she was determined to make it work, and that was so much easier when husband Ralph was in such a benign mood.

‘What was it Nelson said that so upset everybody, by the way?’

‘You saw he was drunk?’

‘I could hardly fail to, since his voice went up with every glass, but I did not hear what he said that had everyone close to him looking away in embarrassment.’

‘He said, in reference to the marriage vows, my dear, that every man is a bachelor east of Gibraltar.’

‘How crass.’

‘Quite.’

‘If you do invite the admiral to dine, don’t invite him.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it, my dear.’

Henry Digby watched the departure of HMS
Brilliant
with mixed feelings, unsure whether his new station was a promotion or just a sideways move. Life as an eighth lieutenant aboard a 100-gun flagship had its compensations; space in the wardroom, decent food, and the knowledge that as those above him were promoted into other ships he too would eventually be shifted out to another vessel, but it had many drawbacks in the sheer numbers aboard, over eight hundred souls of a lower rank than him, so that the intimacy of small ship life, where you would get to know everyone by name, was lost. Such service was at some stage necessary; he could not expect to spend his life in frigates, but it was the prospect of immediate battle he would miss; ships-of-the-line fought vessels of the same size in fleet actions, and they were rare events indeed.

After only four days to revictual and make good his
supplies of wood and water, Ralph Barclay was glad to be away. Lisbon was too tempting a place for a crew with a bit of prize money in the offing, to his new officers who seemed addicted, once the duties of the day were completed, to the whorehouse, but most especially his wife, who could not help but see a bargain in every tiny emporium; lace, furniture, cloth for clothing and drapes, copperwares, functional if not decorative porcelain, in fact everything that in England cost five times more, so that below decks there were dozens of filled crates lined with straw. What was doubly galling was that his frowns of clear disapproval at such expenditure had no discernable effect, which made him wonder what had happened to the creature he had known in England, before and after their nuptials, who had meekly fallen in with whatever he wanted, whether he stated it or not.

There were positives; his crew now had a decent balance between British and foreign hands and he had his full complement in all respects, most notably in the article of proper seamen. Emily had charmed Hotham and most of the senior fleet officers, made manifest by the renaming of the captured
Chantonnay
as HMS
Frome
after the Barclay’s home town, while the way he himself had made clear an attachment to the admiral had got him what he wanted most, the dream of every captain, an independent cruise.

He had also made contact with several dealers in specie, and should he be fortunate enough to touch at Lisbon homeward bound, he had been assured that he could count on a cargo of gold and silver to take home with
him. Like taking his wife to sea, it was forbidden for the captain of a King’s ship to carry private ventures, but the latter was ignored more comprehensively than the former. Gold and silver came in to the Iberian peninsula from the southern Americas, but only realised its true value when shipped to the capital markets of the north, the greatest of which was London. The dealers liked their bullion to be carried in heavily armed vessels, preferably swift sailors and were happy to pay a one and a half percentage fee for carriage of the cargo. Naturally, when these could run into a quarter of a million in value, naval officers queued up to oblige. The number of homebound warships forced to stop at Lisbon for essential repairs might be scandalous, but it was one that was generally treated with a ‘blind eye’.

Having cleared the mouth of the Tagus, Ralph Barclay set a course for Cadiz, to drop off a despatch for the officer liaising with Hotham’s Spanish allies, an attempt to coordinate the entry of both fleets into the Mediterranean. He would be there long before them, with a ship in good order, a full complement of officers and crew, the comfort of his wife and opportunity begging. He was a happy man.

John Pearce was far from happy; the weather in the northern part of the English Channel was bad, and it had taken a heavy bribe just to get a local fishing smack to put to sea, a far cry from that which the professional smugglers used in these parts. They employed lightly built, twenty-four oared galleys the best of which, he had been assured, could make
the twenty five mile crossing, on the right tide, a calm sea and with a following wind, in close to two hours. This was nothing like that; he was on a boat that was really built for inshore fishing, one which made the
Griffin
seem stable, so they were heaving around in the dark, with their passenger locked below and having no idea if they were making any headway, this while he cursed himself for his impatience in not waiting for the weather to moderate. All he was aware of, as he tightened his scarf and wrapped himself in his new cloak, was the stink of long dead fish which permeated the wood of the hull and the constant motion that had no rhythm to it. To top it all, he had been seasick for the first couple of hours, something he had not experienced before and that made him silently promise never to makes jokes at the expense of those afflicted in future, for it was a damned uncomfortable sensation.

He also knew that the boast the master of this tub had made was likely to be just that; he was no real smuggler, only an occasional opportunistic one, and it had been Pearce’s money that had persuaded him to put to sea at a time when getting a decent catch from fishing, with the weather foul and likely to remain so, was difficult. The Reverend John Conway, who had arranged matters, had turned out to be a most surprising cleric. He was not only a radical thinker, but had demonstrated a fine talent for forgery. He had produced for his guest a set of papers that looked truly official, a large and very convincing tricolour cockade, as well as the means to pay for both his passage and what difficulties he would meet once across. In the process of
trying to get him a boat the divine had introduced him to some of the men who lived off the contraband trade; hard, gimlet-eyed and reserved fellows who said little except to politely refuse a request to carry him to France, whatever the proffered fee. Right at this moment Pearce would have offered a King’s ransom for a calm sea state and the right crew and vessel.

‘First hint of dawn is on us, friend,’ said a voice from a raised hatch above his head. ‘Happen we’ll get a sight of the coast.’

Pearce bit back the temptation to say, ‘Yes, but which one?’

‘Hope there’s no revenue men around, ’cause they’s bound to wonder what we’s doing out here in this weather.’

That was a hazard not previously mentioned, and it got Pearce to his feet. Damn the spray that would soak him, cloak and all; if there was any danger he wanted to see it for himself; he also wanted to know if they could get away from it. Quickly he tied his scarf round his hat to keep it on his head and climbed up through the hatch. The north east wind bit into him as he emerged, so icy cold he could easily believe it came all the way from Russia, whipping up short vicious waves that drove under the keel of the fishing smack and lifted it with ease. But that wind had one advantage; it meant clear skies so that there was some visibility from a three-quarter moon, and dawn came with speed, turning the inky sky blue, so that any danger that threatened would be seen at a distance. Soon chilled to the marrow, he looked around him at a deck no more than 
ten feet in length, with nets rolled at the side to slow the water that ran through the scuppers. There was a single mast well forward, with gaff boom running aft to make the triangle of the main sail and a bowsprit for a small jib. The scraps of canvas were well clewed up and four men, the whole crew, were on the tiller, while another stood, arm wrapped round a stay, in the prow, hand over eyes, searching the horizon. Every one of them had been up all night, for he had occupied the crew quarters alone, yet he had no sympathy; for the money Conway was paying they could go without sleep for days. As the sun rose in the east, Pearce went to join the fellow forward, realised it was the master, and yelled in his ear.

‘What chance a revenue cutter?’

He felt the man’s warm breath on his ear as he got his reply. ‘A fair one, ’cause if’n my reckonin’ be correct, we is right on the route to Gravelines, an’ that be the main smuggling port on the coast.’

There was temptation to say that he was aware of the name, as a way of letting this man know he was no stranger to such matters, but he decided the effort was too great, and besides, the less this fellow knew of him the less he could blab to others. Pearce stood for a good twenty minutes, watching the sun first edge the earth’s surface, and slowly tear itself clear, changing from a fiery red to gold as it did so, and all the while the master kept his vigil. That he did so was a worry, and his next question was put to ease his concern.

‘Will they bother to demand we heave to?’

‘Never met a nosey bugger of a revenue man that wouldn’t.’

‘Then let’s hope…’

His passenger never finished the sentence, for the fisherman’s arm shot out, to a point to larboard of the small prow, and yelled ‘Sail’. Before Pearce could respond the man was gone, hurrying down the pitching deck to the wheel, where he could be seen jabbing his hand. That had two men on the ropes that worked the single mainsail, raising it to expose a bit more canvas, while the captain joined the others to push the tiller round on to a more southerly course, the boom immediately adjusted and sheeted home for the new course. Looking to where the man had pointed he saw for himself, as both the smack and the other vessel rose on their respective waves, the point of a cream coloured sail.

There was no way of knowing what it was and even he, who still considered himself a lubber, knew they were on one of the main trade routes of the North Sea, for the Royal Navy depended on the northern states of the Baltic for half the things needed to keep their ships at sea. The Hanse ports of the North German shore constituted one of the great seaborne cartels in the world and Russia, Sweden and Denmark likewise traded on this route, which carried hundreds of ships a week, so the chances of the sighted sail being a threat seemed to him remote; that it did not to the fishermen was obvious. Whatever course and sail plan he had decided on was now in place, for the master came forward again 
to shout into his ear, asking him to come below. Back in the cramped and stinking crew quarters, so small they were almost nose to nose, they could at least speak. The master hauled off his foulweather hat to reveal a ruddy, gnarled, ugly face, and, as he spoke, a mouth without a single tooth.

‘We’re going to try and make the beaches off Dunkirk. It’s not where I had in mind to drop you off ’cause you’ll have a right old tramp to find a road, and if there be any patrols out they’s bound to haul you in.’

‘With respect, is this not a little premature?’

‘How so?’

‘You have yet to positively identify the ship you see as a threat. It could be a merchant vessel or even another fishing smack.’

The jaw rammed shut, the lower lip in such a toothless mouth nearly touching the master’s nose and his eyes left Pearce in no doubt that he had been tactless. ‘Allow that I can see a topsail for what it is, sir. Now it might be a Hollander warship, or even one of our own, but whoever heard of a merchant captain having his high poles rigged at dawn. No sir, never in life. They is set up for a chase if they sights owt, and I take leave to suggest that if I can see them from my deck, then with lookouts aloft they’ll have no trouble, no trouble at all, in seeing us with the sun full on our own canvas.’

‘Do we need to run? Even if they are revenue and they come aboard, there’s nothing to find.’

‘There’s you, sir, and I ain’t asked you, ’cause it’s no part
of our bargain, what you are about that needs such a fee to get over the water.’

‘I could disguise myself as one of your crew.’

The empty mouth opened in an exaggerated burst of laughter. ‘What do you take revenue men for, fools? They know the measure of my boat an’ all the others, and they know the crew numbers if not every face. You wouldn’t pass for a fisherman in a month of Sundays, for all you have a bit of tar in your palms, even if we could clothe you in someat right. Now you tell me it makes no odds if you’re taken back to Sandwich and I’ll alter course to close with the buggers, but I take leave to doubt that a man so secret about his travel wants that to happen?’

‘Can we outrun them?’

The master nodded, for the question answered his own. ‘Depends on our true position, sir, and that is more reckonin’ than certainty, but I was hoping to spy a line of dunes as soon as the sun rose enough to light them, so we best get back on deck and see if’n I is right.’

Both emerged and looked east, peering harder as the smack lifted on the swell. The master grabbed hold of one of the hoops that ran up the back of his mast and began to climb, this while Pearce looked at the threat to the north, and saw that it was much closer, not just the highest sails now, but the mainsails below them were visible on the rise.

Halfway up his mast the master stopped and pointed again, his voice carrying to Pearce in spite of the wind. ‘Just as I had it.’ Then he looked at the sail to the north, 
before clambering down to put his warm and smelly breath into Pearce’s ear. ‘It’ll be too close a thing to set you ashore without your feet getting wet. We don’t draw much water under our keel so I will take us in as close as I dare. Thank Christ the wind is off the land and the tide is falling, for I’d never have got you beached if it were a lee shore.’

‘How close in can you get?’

‘I doubt you’ll have to hang on to your hat, but I don’t think you’ll get much comfort from your breeches till you find a fire.’

It was an unpleasant thought, wet breeches, a freezing wind and sand, but the alternative was worse, for he would have great difficulty in explaining himself to anyone from the revenue. Indeed, with the clothes he was wearing under his cloak, midshipman blue, he might be taken for a spy. For certain he would be taken back to his home shore, there to be questioned and Pearce doubted if whatever tale he came up with would stand up to much scrutiny. He felt lonely then and wished that his fellow Pelicans, particularly Michael O’Hagan, were around to share his plight. Michael would be as stalwart as always, even useless Rufus would be someone to talk to, and Charlie, when it came to escaping the clutches of the law, had more experience than he. Whatever, he could talk with them, and give some clarity to what was, at this moment, a whirl of confused thoughts in his mind.