Girl on the Orlop Deck (10 page)

The warm days passed without incident. March breathed into April and April eased into the warmth of May. There was nothing for the crew to do but work the ship, carry messages for the Admiral, eat their meals and take their ease. Which Marianne and Johnny did most happily. But then, just when they weren’t expecting it, everything changed. Late one easy afternoon a frigate sailed into view and it was flying the one signal Marianne didn’t want to see:
The enemy is at sea
.

There was instant and ordered activity aboard the
Amphion
and the four ships of the line that were sailing with Nelson when the order came. The frigate was despatched to spread the news to the rest of the fleet, which was patrolling the seas around Corsica and Sardinia, and the five ships put on sail and made all speed to the southern coast of France.

Marianne obeyed orders with the rest of the crew, climbing the rigging and setting sails and doing whatever was required of her, but her mind was numb with disbelief and she worked mechanically without being aware of what she was doing. They couldn’t be sailing towards a battle, surely to goodness. Not after all this time. There was no sense in it. How was she to jump ship when she was out in the middle of the Meddytranium? More pressingly, where could she hide if the Frenchies started firing their cannon? She kept an eye open for Johnny but he was on the lower deck among his fellow gunners, clearing the decks for action, and had forgotten all about her. She looked for Peg and Moll but they were kept as hard at work as she was and didn’t have time to talk or even look at her. She wanted to howl because she was afraid but howling was a waste of time and she knew it. And once they’d relayed their message, the ship made steady progress towards the enemy, its bows cleaving the green water clean as a knife and making the spray rise with a hiss, its sails cracking like a cat-a’-nine-tails in the strong wind. This can’t be happening, she thought, over and over again. Please, God, don’t let it happen. I’ll never commit adultery again, I promise, if You’ll just make it not happen.

As the hours passed and their progress continued, she grew calmer. If they had any sense the Frenchies would get out of the way and go off and hide somewhere, the way they’d been doing all these months. They might have done it already, for all she knew. We might get to the French coast and find it empty of any ships at all, the way we done so many times. Anything was possible.

But the French ships were waiting for them and although their gun ports were still closed, there were so many of them and they looked so formidable under full sail and with their colours flying that she was afraid all over again, her heart thudding against her ribs and her mouth dry. She stood by the rail and counted them, watching as they shifted and manoeuvred – eight men a’ war and six frigates. Oh my dear heart alive, she thought, ’tis a fearsome odds. There’s fourteen of them an’ only six of us. We shall be blown out the water.

The officers were shouting orders again and there was a rush to obey them. The ships had to change tack and form a column and prepare for action. The decks were sanded and sprinkled with water; nets were carried up from below and hung across the upper deck and the
quarter-deck
to prevent injury from flying splinters; the bosun and his mates were puddening the yards; the loblolly boys were setting barrels of fresh water by the masts and the scuttlebutts and carrying empty buckets down to the orlop deck where the surgeon was preparing his table and sharpening his knives, the marines were stationed in the gangways and in the tops; there were powder monkeys everywhere, carrying shot of all kinds and the captain was on the quarter-deck in his full dress uniform, silk stockings gold lace and all. The battle was almost upon them. There was no time to stop, no time to think, no time to breathe.

And then, just as suddenly as the preparations had begun, they came to a halt. The French ships were on the move, their battle line breaking, they were turning north, sailing towards the harbour, disappearing section by section, lower decks, upper decks, mast after mast, yard after yard, staysails, topmasts, colours and all, until they were lost under the horizon and the sea was clear of them.

Below decks the gunners were cheering as though they’d won a victory and were mocking the ‘yellow-bellied Frenchies’ for cowards; the powder monkeys were wiping the sweat out of their eyes and looking pleased with themselves; the captain was scowling because they’d lost an
opportunity
and he knew how annoyed the Admiral would be, but Marianne
was limp with relief because she’d been spared a battle.

Peg was at her side, staring at the empty sea. ‘Well, what d’you make a’ that?’ she asked.

‘’Twill be something to write home about,’ Marianne told her. ‘Shows what cowards the Frenchies are. I knew they’d cut an’ run.’

‘’Twon’t please our Nelson,’ Peg said. ‘You mark my words.’

‘I can’t help about Nelson,’ Marianne said. ‘It pleases me.’ And she wondered what Johnny would think of it.

‘That’s Frenchies for you,’ he said, when they met in the cabin the next day. ‘Lily-livered the lot of ’em. Why are we wasting time talking?’

Later, as she was getting her breath back, she remembered that she’d promised not to commit adultery any more. It was a nasty moment and it made her feel horribly anxious, because it had been a solemn promise, almost like a prayer, and even if it hadn’t been a prayer it was a serious bargain with Fate which was just as binding. She ought to have
remembered
it, not gone ahead and forgotten all about it. But she
had
forgotten about it and she had gone ahead and now it was too late. She lay very still and quiet, thinking about it. Maybe it wouldn’t matter that much. After all, it wasn’t the sort a’ promise anyone could keep, not really, not when you came to think about it. It was just something you said in the heat of battle. Wasn’t it? People said all sorts a’ things in the heat of the battle. But she
had
said it and she’d meant it at the time. She
remembered
that clearly. Oh my dear life, she thought, what can I do about it now?

‘Time for ’ee to cut off,’ Johnny said, giving her shoulder a shake. She was looking uncommon dreamy and it wouldn’t do for her to fall asleep.

She stirred herself. ‘What?’

‘Back to duty,’ he said.

P
ORTSMOUTH WAS IN
the grip of invasion fever that summer and, like so many of her neighbours, Mary Morris was irritable with
anxiety
.

‘We shall all be killed in our beds,’ she said, ironing furiously. ‘That’s what’ll happen to us, you mark my words, every blamed one of us. Killed in our beds and I don’t know what else besides. It fair makes my blood run cold to think of it. ’Tis no earthly use you pullin’ a face an’ sayin’ “No you won’t”. Why d’you think they’re building watch towers all along the coast, an’ pilin’ up beacons – you’ve only to look up an’ you can see ’em on the heights – an’ sendin’ soldiers, an’ I don’t know what all? If that don’t mean an invasion’s a-coming I don’t know what does.’

‘They done that last year,’ Jack Morris said, smoking his pipe and trying to be reasonable, ‘which you got to allow, an’ nothin’ come of it.’

‘Last year was last year,’ Mary said, pushing her damp hair out of her eyes. The kitchen was hot with steam and hung about with sheets and towels and pillow cases, dripping from the racks on the ceiling, ironed and airing before the stove, piled damply into laundry baskets on every inch of floor. It had been a bad day for drying clothes and Mary was weary with too much work, her hands sore and red, her back aching fit to split in half. She held the iron towards her cheek and sighed. It wasn’t hot enough to use any more. She stooped to set it on the trivet and took up another one, straightening her back before she set to work again.

‘This year, last year, I can’t see no difference,’ her husband said mildly.

‘Tha’s on account of you en’t a-looking in the right direction,’ Mary told him crossly. ‘There’s all the difference in the world. He wants for to be emperor seemingly. Tha’s the difference.’

‘Who wants to be emperor?’

‘Boney, that’s who. Wants to be emperor. Lizzie was tellin’ me just this very afternoon.’

‘Well then let him,’ Jack said. ‘Tha’s my opinion of it. ’Te’nt none of our affair.’

‘How can ’ee talk such nonsense?’ Mary said, her cheeks hot with work and exasperation. ‘If he wants to be emperor then he wants an empire. Stands to reason. You can’t be an emperor without an empire. An’ where’s he goin’ to get an empire from? You tell me that. Why he’ll come here for it. That’s what he’ll do. We’re to be his empire. ’Tis as plain as the nose on my face. He’ll come here with his cannon an’ his soldiers an’ his great ships an’ he’ll walk all over us, you just see if he don’t, an’ we shall be his slaves. So don’t you tell me he en’t comin’, for I knows better.’

‘He won’t come to Portsmouth,’ Jack said. ‘Not with all our ships hereabouts.’

‘’Course he’ll come to Portsmouth,’ Mary said. ‘’Tis a port. Where else would he come? ’Tis just the very place. An’ where’s Lord Nelson when we needs him? Gallivantin’ in foreign parts, that’s where he is, when he ought to be in the Channel, keeping watch, which would bring our Marianne back home again, where she ought to be an’ which he should ha’ done long since. She got no right to be gallivantin’ in foreign parts. That’s my opinion of it. Fourteen months she’s been away, I’ll have you know. Fourteen months an’ another winter comin’ on. It’s enough to worry anyone sick.’

‘She’s writ to ’ee,’ Jack pointed out.

‘Four letters in fourteen months,’ Mary said, bitterly, ‘an’ the last one all about some battle she could ha’ been caught up in.’

‘Which she never,’ Jack said, with heavy patience. ‘The Frenchies cut an’ run. I remember you an’ Lizzie readin’ it out.’

‘An’ what if they hadn’t?’ Mary said. ‘She could ha’ been blowed to bits. ’Ten’t right, a bit of a girl in the middle of a battle. I don’t know what the world’s a-comin’ to, I truly don’t. Girls at sea, where they never ought to be in all conscience, an’ Boney comin’ for to invade us.’

It was too much for Jack Morris. He’d never been able to stand her outbursts and this was a bad one. If the Frenchies were going to come, they’d come and all the talk in the world wouldn’t stop them. ‘I’m off out,’ he said, standing up and reaching for his purse on the mantelpiece. ‘Time to wet the ol’ whistle.’

‘Oh that’s it,’ Mary said angrily. ‘Run off, I should. Turn your back. That’ll stop ol’Boney, I don’t think!’

But he was already opening the door.

He never faces up to anything, Mary thought mutinously. ’Tis the most aggravating thing about him. And I knows I’m in the right. They wouldn’t be putting up all those great towers and building beacons and recruiting troops if they didn’t think there was like to be an invasion. ’Twill be no earthly good runnin’ off to wet his dratted whistle when the soldiers are at the door. God save us all. What are we to do when the soldiers are at the door?

She was certainly right about Napoleon’s imperial ambitions. His
invasion
fleet was ready on the other side of the channel with over 60,000 fully armed troops primed and under orders. And preparations for his coronation were well in hand.

In July the French fleet in Toulon fired off their cannons to celebrate his ‘historic decision’ to be crowned. And the next morning, not to be outdone, Nelson gave orders for the British fleet to fire an even bigger salute to mark the sixty-sixth birthday of King George III. But, when the smoke of these belligerent tributes had drifted and dispersed, nothing was changed. The French fleet was still safely tucked away in the harbour and although Nelson watched and waited, straining his remaining eye with constant observation, they showed no signs of coming out again. He, too, was anxious in case England should be invaded, for he knew how real the threat of a seaborne invasion could be. It only needed a fair wind and the slightest lapse in the watchfulness of Admiral Cornwallis and his fleet and the French could be on the beaches. But the weeks passed and became months as he prowled the French coast, waiting and watching, and there was no news of an invasion, which was a relief, but no hope of the battle he was determined to fight either, which was an endless irritation.

‘This is an odd war,’ he complained to his captains, when they were gathered about his table on a quiet evening in October. ‘Not a battle! We’ve been at sea for seventeen months, and many of us haven’t set foot ashore in all that time. Buonaparte means to be crowned an emperor, thereby showing his overweening pride, and yet his fleet still hides in Toulon and can’t summon up the courage to come out and face us.’

They agreed with his opinion of their opponent’s cowardice and one or two of them were encouraged to ask whether they were going to spend another winter at sea.

‘If they won’t come out and face us in good weather,’ Captain Hardy said, ‘are they like to do it in bad?’

‘According to our spies,’ Nelson told them, ‘Buonaparte is considering opening peace negotiations with Mr Fox.’

‘Is it likely, do you think?’ Hardy asked.

‘It is impossible to guess at the state of mind of a putative emperor,’ Nelson said, wryly. ‘But should it turn out to be the case we shall
doubtless
be recalled and the decision will be made for us. More wine, gentlemen?’

News filtered through to them slowly as autumn chilled into winter. The dreaded invasion didn’t come and letters on the last vessel to arrive reported that the weather in the Channel was so bad that it looked as though it would be postponed until the spring. There were no peace negotiations, but Napoleon gave no orders to his fleet to engage their waiting enemy either so the sea patrols continued. They were now well into their second winter at sea and they seemed to have reached a
stalemate
which showed no signs of being broken. After such a long fruitless wait, Nelson was at a low ebb, frustrated and depressed and, as he was now beginning to admit, not in the best of health.

During the long dull days he wrote letters – to Emma, lovingly and often, to suppliers with detailed instructions of the goods he needed, and, after giving it thought for several days, to his physician, who was the one person to whom he could speak freely about his health and the miserable state he was in and could be told that he was wondering whether he ought to ask for a few months’ leave.

Although I am ready to die for my country
, he wrote,
I cannot see that allowing myself to degenerate into a helpless invalid would benefit anybody
. He reported that his stump was a better predictor of the coming weather than any barometer and that although he was obeying instructions and wearing a green shade over his eyes for protection against the glare of the sun,
I can every month perceive a visible
(
if I may be allowed the expression
)
loss of sight
. In short, he admitted that his health was poor and that he was troubled to be in such a wretched state when he needed to be in full possession of all his powers when he faced the coming battle.

Finally, after thinking about it for several weeks, he wrote a courteous request to Viscount Melville, the new First Lord of the Admiralty, to ask for leave of absence
for the re-establishment of my health
and to suggest that Bickerton was capable of commanding the fleet
in the present conditions
.

Then there was nothing to be done except wait for a reply.

What arrived was a cutter with letters from his spies in Gibraltar reporting that Spain intended to throw in its lot with Buonaparte and declare war on England ‘within the month’, and secret instructions from the Admiralty that he was to dispatch two frigates to intercept a Spanish treasure fleet which had sailed from Montevideo and was currently off Cadiz and bound for Ferrol.

‘Two frigates are insufficient,’ he said to Hardy. ‘We need greater fire power if we are to take a treasure fleet. Send a message to the
Donegal
that she is to proceed to Cadiz with four.’

The
Donegal
, which was a ship of the line and carried eighty guns, duly put on all sail and proceeded – accompanied by four frigates. And one of the four was the
Amphion
.

Marianne was quite pleased to be sent aloft to put on more sail. She’d been feeling just a sight too queasy for the last week or so, retching and heaving at the least movement of the ship, and being kept busy would take her mind away from her sickness. It annoyed her that she was being seasick. She’d always been proud of withstanding the sea no matter what and now here she was spewing with the rest of ’em.

Peg said there was no accounting with seasickness and rubbed her back when she passed her hanging over the stern but Moll was thoughtful.

‘’Ten’t like you, my lubber,’ she said, when she found Marianne crouched against the capstan recovering from a particularly miserable bout. ‘You was allus fit as a flea.’

Marianne felt too ill to answer her and they were being given orders so the moment passed. But it was a nuisance and she had to admit it.

Now, as the
Amphion
sped through the green waters with a fair wind to fill her sails and all hands hard at work, she felt quite herself again. ’Twas idling what made me sick, she thought. That’s all. And she wondered what they would do when they met up with the treasure fleet. It would be quite an adventure.

The four ships of the treasure fleet hove into view just outside Cadiz, travelling at a stately pace and heading towards the harbour. The gunners were soon at action stations with Johnny Galley among them. Not that they would be called on to fire off their cannon. She knew that. Johnny had explained it to her, not long after they’d set sail. ‘We’ll
show ’em our guns,’ he’d said, ‘an’ they’ll do as we tell ’em and hand over the gold. That’s the style of it. Then we’ll share out the prize money and go home rich as lords.’ And he’d grinned at her and gone below to the gun deck.

It didn’t work out quite as he’d predicted. The Spanish ships hove to right enough, as soon as they were accosted, but they didn’t show a white flag. They lined up ready to do battle.

Marianne was horrified. They couldn’t be going to fight, surely to goodness. Not against a ship of the line. But there was no time to think about it for commands were being given. They were to change tack to line up in opposition and she was being ordered up into the rigging. She knew that was just the place where they’d be aiming those great guns of theirs, but she did as she was told and looked chearly about it, climbing quickly and working as neatly as she could given that her heart was
thundering
in her chest and her hands were shaking. When she looked down, she could see the enemy gun ports opening, the mouths of their cannon glinting in the sunlight. My dear heart alive, she thought. What if they fire on us now?

They fired while the thought was in her head, with a roar that hurt her ears and a great deal of black smoke that spread from their gun ports like clouds, but their aim was poor and the shot fell well short, each one hitting the water with a splash like a fountain head. She was down the rigging and had reached the deck before she was aware that she was moving. Then everything happened at speed. The
Donegal
opened fire with an even mightier roar from her forty great guns. Smoke swirled across the deck of the
Amphion
so that for a few seconds Marianne couldn’t see what was happening. Then there was another frightening roar and one of the Spanish ships exploded before her eyes, shooting flames and debris high into the air. It was so powerful and so dramatic she was impressed despite her fear. And then it was all over. The other three Spanish ships were running up white flags. I been in a battle, she thought, an’ I’ve come through an’ I en’t been blowed up an’ all those people on that ship have. Poor souls. Then she was sick.

She went on feeling sick while the longboats were sent out to gather up their haul and bring it back to the
Donegal
and the three Spanish ships sailed off towards Cadiz, defeated and denuded of treasure. Supper than night was a celebration but she felt too queasy to do justice to it and she was still feeling sick the next morning when they rejoined the
British fleet and their captains were rowed across to the
Victory
to report to the Admiral.