An Ill Wind (18 page)

His darker thoughts were relieved by his taking his turn on an oar, an act which got him a nod from the fellow called Polly, who, it turned out, had the surname of Parrat, which was close enough to the bird, especially spoken, to explain why he was so named. Just as he was willing to share the burden of toil, he was also
well able to take instruction from the men around him, who knew how to best employ their sticks in the rolling waves, gaining as much speed from crest to trough as they could, then fighting to maintain it as they rose to the next, always careful to rest when all their oars could make contact with was fresh air.

One man – again they took turns – was tasked to stand in the prow and look out for any sign of a sail, in his hands two pieces of rope tied to the boat to make sure he did not go overboard if the cutter jibbed suddenly, but all every man employed saw was miles of deserted ocean. The winter day might be short, but it had enough hours to exhaust the entire complement, which presented Pearce with another dilemma: should they seek to row on through the night or rest? In the end it was a best guess to keep some men rowing so the cutter had way enough not to be broached, but with the minimum effort, this as the others took turns to sleep.

The sky began to break up overnight, which was a good thing, since the stars began to show, the mass of the Milky Way affording enough light to allow faces to be seen, but against that came an increase in wind and from the wrong quarter, which Pearce suspected to be the north or north-east, which made rowing into it much harder, as well as altering the run on the surface water. That meant more men had to eschew sleep and row to keep way on the boat.

He knew enough to be sure the current would be unaffected, just as he knew that what applied in terms
of pressure to a deep-hulled ship did not apply to a cutter. Examining the sky, he tried without feeling much in the way of success to identify those objects Captain McGann had sought to teach him: the seven celestial bodies the older man had called shooting stars, by which he had been able to establish his position and plot a course. Failure to identify them all mattered little for what he required: all he needed was Polaris to set the prow to what he was sure was due east.

Way to the north, having made good progress throughout the daylight hours, Ralph Barclay welcomed that same clearing sky and the sight of that same North Star; his prow was set right towards it and the English Channel.

A sip of water and a couple of ship’s biscuits were not enough to provide sustenance for men working as hard as oarsmen, yet it was all they had and must be eked out. Nor was Pearce able to contemplate rest: if they tried to lie to, the wind, now strengthened, would drive them away from their hoped-for destination and that was another source of worry: Revolutionary France was not a happy place for which to aim and he knew that the coast where he hoped to make landfall was one of the most turbulent in that troubled country, even more so than Toulon.

The Vendée region had been in revolt against Paris for nearly a year, indeed he had heard himself of some of the horrors committed by both sides when he was off La
Rochelle the previous autumn. Was that revolt still alive? If it was, he and his companions might be lucky enough to land in territory controlled by the so-called Chouans, the local forces fighting the armies ordered to pacify the region. Or they might land amongst the revolutionary army, which would be dangerous in the extreme.

The whole western part of France, from La Rochelle to Brittany, was reportedly soaked with the blood of the inhabitants, regardless of age or sex, as well as those sent to defeat them. The locals, led by priests and their landlords, fought with equal barbarity, showing no mercy to anyone they defeated and captured: like all civil wars it was ruthless, and pitted brother against brother, fathers against sons.

They would need great good fortune, a thought which gained something from the rising of the sun, the orange ball turning to gold right ahead of them, and so seeming to offer a prospect of salvation. It gave more than that, for the night had been bitterly cold, so the little heat they received as it rose in the sky, evident even at this time of year, was welcome. Looking into the salt-encrusted faces and red-rimmed eyes of his companions Pearce knew he would appear the same, knew that to blink brought on a sting, that to lick his lips was to be avoided, given it would only increase his thirst as he sucked in salt. And all around them was the rolling sea, nothing but that within sight as they crested each wave, no seabirds to hint at land nearby, which in turn produced gloom.

‘A sail, I saw a sail!’

‘Where away?’ Pearce shouted, before admonishing the men, who had turned, to keep rowing as they fell off the top of the wave. Making his way forward through the mass of bodies was difficult and he was aware that having risen again the lookout had not spotted what he believed he had seen previously: was it no more than a vision caused by wishful thinking?

‘There again, I see it, the tip of a mast, no two.’

John Pearce was with him now, his arms locked around the lookout’s body to steady himself, his sore eyes straining forward, his heart beating with hope. Then he saw it as well and he shouted back to confirm the sighting, to tell his rowers to pull like the devil, which he realised as soon as he spoke was the most unnecessary command he would ever issue.

Closing with that vessel took several exhausting hours, though it was quickly identified as a two-masted brigantine of small displacement. The opinion was that whoever was aboard her was no sailor, given the top hamper was all ahoo: the square-rigged foremast had nothing but half a main course drawing, and that was clewed up at one end. It was also obvious the cutter was making more progress in closing than the sailing ship, which given the favourable wind was ridiculous. It took all of the morning and half the afternoon to get within hailing distance, which did not produce much in the way of joy since John Pearce was told, in French, by a loud and angry individual who stayed out of sight, to stay away.

‘Whoever had charge of this barky is no sailor, Mr Pearce, she’s a’wallowing not sailing.’

Pearce nodded to Polly and hailed the ship again which produced another negative response, as well as a sort of argument. He suspected the men who were relying on him wondered what was being said in the shouted conversation being carried out in a language they could not understand, but he was in a poor position to enlighten them, given they were too low in the water to see on to the deck, even when the vessel was in a trough and they were on a crest. All he had to go by was that single, irate voice.

‘I have asked them,’ he said eventually, ‘or whoever the person is doing the talking, to take us aboard and he has refused.’

‘We’s shipwrecked,’ exclaimed one of the men on the oars. ‘They’s got to take us.’

‘They say they won’t. We are to stay away.’

‘Then why,’ Polly demanded, ‘if they mean to leave us, don’t they sheet home some sails proper and leave us behind? Even what they have, made taut, would be enough to show us a clean pair of heels.’

Pearce cupped his hands and shouted again, his tone harsh instead of the supplicant way he had called before, which had Polly asking him what he had said.

‘I said we are coming aboard, whether they like it or not.’

Pearce fully expected, as the prow of the cutter was aimed at the scantlings, to find the side suddenly filled with armed men, which, given they had few weapons with which to effect a boarding, served to underline how desperate was their situation. Yet not a soul appeared and the cutter clattered to the hull with little grace, the men of HMS
Grampus
, with the Pelicans at the fore, fatigued as they were, leaping for the bulwarks, rasping shouts coming from dry throats. What they saw on the deck stopped every man jack of them stone dead, most before they had both feet on the planking.

The priests and nuns, some thirty in number, knelt, heads bowed, and hands clasped together around rosaries, obviously praying, the low murmuring sound of their devotions like the buzz of a hive. Michael O’Hagan immediately crossed himself, this while Pearce
held up a hand to still the exclamations coming from the men he led. Slowly they climbed down on to the deck and stood in a confused huddle, not knowing what to do, until Pearce spoke.

‘Michael, how do we address folk at prayer?’

The shake of his friend’s head left little choice but to advance towards the man leading the devotions, not that he was sure it was leadership, only that he was in front and separate from the rest. Stopping before the priest he took the time to look around a deck that was untidy in the extreme, with nothing shipshape: loose ropes hung down from the masts and bits of half-unfolded canvas lay here and there. Also he thought he saw, in a stain in the unclean deck, a black shapeless mark that could be blood.

Never comfortable in the company of priests, he was at a loss to know what to say. It was also true that those he had met, and with whom he could hold a conversation, were those of a more secular mien than this obviously devout fellow kneeling before him: exchanges of a political nature with the likes of Tallyrand, the ex-bishop of Autun, or the Abbé Sieyès, both anti-clerical politicians, in the salons of Paris, did not fit a man for a situation like this.

‘Monsieur l’Abbé.’

One hand, palm open and facing him, came up, but the head stayed down, forcing him to turn and shrug, that before he realised that no one had moved, so he made frantic hand signals to tell them to search below,
while also ensuring in a low voice that their cutter had been secured, a query that got him a look from men too long versed in their duties to have failed in such a task. Raising his head he looked at the half-set sail, seeing it had been let go two-thirds of the way along the yard but was still clewed up on the rest, while the lines to sheet it home were taut on the winged side and loose where it flapped.

He was still standing waiting when whispered words informed him the ship was carrying no cargo: though there were supplies of food, the holds were near empty as was everything else, including the main cabin, though it looked as though that had been used as a place of rest. Michael tapped his shoulder as the kneeling priest, his voice rising a fraction, made a blessing with the hand he had used to silence Pearce. Then he finished his quiet prayer and looked up showing a face full of sadness.

‘We have made our peace with God. You may do now as you wish.’

Replying in French, Pearce asked him what he meant, which engendered a certain amount of confusion until he added that they were Englishmen and explained the circumstances by which they had come to be here. It was quite amazing the way the priest’s eyes could open so wide, and the gabbling explanation he passed on to his companions had them all raising their hands to heaven and loudly, almost ecstatically, praising the Lord. Then the leader stood and kissed John Pearce,
with some force, on both cheeks. Some of the nuns were now in tears, wringing their hands and still thanking their Creator.

‘We were sure you were the apostates of Paris, sent to cut our throats.’

‘You must explain.’

It was incoherent to Pearce and double Dutch to everyone else who had come on board with him, which may have been just as well, given it was such a bloody tale. They had fled from a monastery outside Nantes to escape the clutches of a ferocious Jacobin revolutionary representative called Jean-Baptiste Carrier and his assistants, taking refuge in the small estuary port of St Nazaire, from where they had heard of the fate they had escaped.

‘He has overseen the murders of thousands of good people, some who died for their faith, others for their wealth and bloodline, but the beast Carrier reserved his bile most for the clergy and those who chose to be brides of Christ.’

It was a horrific tale, of nuns raped and priests decapitated, of both being loaded into barges to which they were tied, they then sunk in the waters of the Loire River, the occupants drowning with prayers for salvation on their lips and the braying yells of the mob in their ears. Even more was what the Abbé termed ‘republican marriages’, overseen by the Jacobin representative in person, of priests and nuns first made naked then bound tight, face to face, to be either run through with a single
sword or to be thrown into the river to drown.

‘We were fortunate, monsieur, for the captain of this ship, a good son of Mother Church and a Chouan, spirited us away before the beast could lay hands on us, though we saw our home, our abbey, burning as we fled. He got us aboard but his crew refused to put to sea for fear of what would become of their loved ones left behind, for the Jacobins were on our heels and they had no time to gather their families, leaving Captain Defrou with no choice but to ask us to aid him to raise the anchor; can you imagine it, monsieur, priests and nuns on that thing they call the capstan? The tide was falling and that took us out to sea. The crew took to the boats and went ashore.’

‘And where is the captain now?’

The priest looked at that black stain Pearce had noticed earlier and crossed himself: there was no need to say more about the fate of the man but he did so nevertheless. ‘He was no longer a young man and he told me that what he was about to do he had not been required to try for many years. I confess I did not beg him to avoid the risk, but then he made light of it and the fact that none of us could face the task of aiding him, from fear of the fate he suffered, may God rest his soul.’

John Pearce could imagine that fate: loosening a sail was a task for many hands not one, a job that was coordinated, not carried out piecemeal, and a flapping, half-released main course would be a threat to whoever
was on the yard trying singly to release it. It was also a place for men who were young, nimble and fit.

‘He fell when halfway along and smashed into the deck with the most frightening sound. I have heard a bone break but not many at one time and he was not a man of slender build so I fear his bulk did him harm. We carried him to his cabin and prayed for him, but it was to no avail.’

John Pearce bit his tongue then: the man was dead, so no good would come of saying a little physical ministration might have had more effect than religious entreaty.

‘Where did he plan to take you?’

‘Anywhere, monsieur, away from those Jacobin fiends.’

Pearce turned to Polly. ‘Mr Parrat, oblige me by getting some men aloft to loose the rest of that mainsail, while I instruct our divines on how to sheet it home.’

Polly raised an eyebrow at being addressed as ‘mister’, but that was the least of his concerns. ‘I’d be minded, and so would the lads, to hear this man’s tale, as you have done.’

‘Later. Let us get properly under way first, and second to that, let us calculate what stores are aboard. We will need to empty the sail locker and see what we have; also, we will need someone nimble at the masthead. We are in French waters and it would never do to be surprised.’

Polly nodded and shouted the requisite orders, then barked to see some of the men hesitate, for they were not topmen. Pearce turned back to the Abbé who was
eager to know what was happening.

‘You have the good fortune, monsieur, to have had come aboard a party of the best sailors on God’s earth. Now I require you and your people to come with me while I show you which ropes to pull and when to pull them.’

‘To what purpose, my son?’

‘Why, to sail to safety, monsieur.’

‘And where will that be?’

‘England.’

The eyes opened in horror and the voice was full of doom. ‘Is that not godless country?’

‘No, monsieur l’Abbé, it is a country where you can practise your religion without fear for your life.’ Pearce took his arm and led him to where the falls hung loose from the rigging. ‘Now gather your charges and get them clasping hard on this rope, as if it would haul down to them salvation, when I say to pull.’

Ralph Barclay had got the lieutenant to make a knotted and weighted line by which they could make a rough calculation of their speed while he used a sandglass brought aboard to time their tacking and wearing: not dead reckoning but enough of a measure to keep them on a reasonable course, though he tended to lay longer to larboard than starboard with the knowledge that somewhere close by lay the iron shore of Brittany. Their course might raise one of the Norman Isles but he hoped to weather both Ushant, avoid them and make a landfall east of the Isles of Scilly, which would bring
him to the shores of Cornwall or Devon.

They might be under sail but the work was having an effect on those aboard, for the eking out of the supplies meant they received little sustenance and less water, which left him with two conflicting hopes, cloud cover and rainfall, or clear skies that at night made navigation easy with that bright Pole Star, one degree off true north, to guide him home. Having steered by it throughout the night, all in all he was feeling fairly confident, certainly enough to allow himself to surrender charge of the boat and get some sleep at sunrise. That confidence faded when he awoke and it was pointed out to him that the sky to the west was showing signs of increasingly heavy cloud.

He did not need to be told the wind had swung yet again, nor what that increasing cloud portended, and it was not a happy thought that made the notion of that iron shore take on more meaning. If the wind came in at gale force from the west, which looked to be likely, it would be that much harder – in fact it might be impossible – to keep clear of it, even in a single-sailed fore-and-aft-rigged vessel.

In a time of peace, and seeing what was bubbling up on the horizon, Ralph Barclay would have immediately run for land and it was something he had to consider now, unpalatable as it was. Captivity might be unpleasant but it was preferable to death, for sitting as low as she was with overcrowding it would not take much of a cross sea to swamp them. The real question was how long he had to decide, given he was on a part of the
ocean notorious for tempests: that Brittany shore, full of broken rocks, deep bays and high cliffs was testimony to the force they could generate.

‘Husband, I require to relieve my bowels.’

Damn the woman, he thought: why could she not be like everyone else aboard and just void herself with having all aboard avert their gaze, and behind a screen at that? Impolite it might be, but they were in a dire situation where manners mattered little. Emily was thinking she had seen enough of the men aboard perched on the gunnels with their ducks around their ankles, or pissing into a bailing can before tossing the contents over the side, to last her a lifetime. She was also acutely aware of the approach of an awkward time of month and what needed to be done so she could avoid staining her clothing.

‘One day I must introduce you to Portsmouth Cath,’ Ralph Barclay said, maliciously. ‘If you saw her antics you might be less worried about the eyes of the men upon you. She is wont to challenge your mids to a pissing contest, and even with her sex, she can outgun them every time, taking their bets as reward.’

‘Spare me your anecdotes of the graceless whores of naval ports.’

‘All I am trying to say to you, Mrs Barclay, is that these men before you have seen everything, and while you might suffer from embarrassment, they are more likely to react to the sight of you going about your occasions with indifference.’

‘I have learnt much about life since I sailed with you, husband, but that I would like to be spared.’

‘Then you will oblige me by waiting until we have established our latitude. Lieutenant, have your sextant at the ready, by the sight of the sun we are approaching the zenith.’

Having held on as long as she could, it was with some discomfort that Emily Barclay waited through the ritual of shooting the noonday sun, which not only gave them a time by which to set the sandglass but, by establishing the height of the orb relative to the horizon, a fairly accurate fix on where they were and how far they had yet to travel, and all the while she squirmed her husband was looking to the west with a wary eye.

Whatever else Ralph Barclay was, and opinions differed, he was a good seaman. He had been at sea since his thirteenth year, and if he had endured some awful maltreatment he had also been taught his trade in waters that ran from where they were now to the other side of the ocean. Each time they rose on a wave he saw that cloud thickening, but it was the darkening at the base which told him it portended real trouble.

‘Devenow, the canvas screen for Mrs Barclay, and you men to avert your eyes.’

With that he went forward, handed from man to man, to consult with the lieutenant. Emily was left glaring at Gherson, who had on more than one occasion sought to peep round the screen Devenow held to get a look at her with her skirts raised; he was nothing but a slug, and that
was underlined by the smile he gave her in response, which made her blush and made her furious for doing so.

‘A little further round, Devenow, if you please,’ she asked, cutting off his eyeline.

‘Don’t forget to hold on tight, Mrs Barclay,’ Gherson said, a smirk on his face as it was cut out. ‘It would never do to have to let fly the sail to fetch you out of the sea.’

‘If it were you, sir, and I had charge, you could stay to drown.’

The voice that replied had no humour in it at all. ‘People have tried to drown me afore, and, by damn, they have failed.’