Hervey 09 - Man Of War (40 page)

In the silence which followed, a single voice piped clear. ‘Fireships close on
Dartmouth
, sir, and corvettes engaging!’

Peto made mental note to commend Midshipman Simpson in front of the crew when it was all done. ‘Let us hasten back to her, then, Mr Lambe.’

* * *

Twenty backbreaking minutes’ labour, the sailing-master barely drawing breath, Veitch himself taking the helm to feel with his own hands how close he could sail to the wind, and the gun-crews working like machines to have the batteries ready once more.
Dartmouth
’s perilous position compelled the Ruperts as no lash could: fire ringed her, and two corvettes off the lee beam plagued her with shot and grape.

‘Damnable,’ muttered Peto, several times. How had Fellowes allowed himself to be pressed so? And somewhere in that fog of smoke and flame was
Rupert
’s own cutter . . .

The bowchasers opened up. The range was too great and the motion of the ship too uneven, however. Nevertheless the corvettes recognized the approaching danger. One of them began bearing away into the smoke; the other made a clumsy attempt to wear, and ended making unwelcome leeway instead. Peto smiled, ironically: the wind, such as it was, now worked to his advantage.

There was a convention that a ship of the Line did not fire on a single-decker unless that ship herself opened fire. Doubtless the corvette would prefer to drift by, guns silent. But it was too late. ‘Larboard guns fire as they bear!’ said Peto, coldly.

The Turk’s crew began abandoning her even before
Rupert
’s first gun bore. When the third bank fired, the corvette blew up, her yards soaring into the sky like rockets, debris falling across half a mile, the sea about her like a puddle in a hailstorm. Most of the Ruperts had never seen an explosion; they stood gaping, until the boatswain’s curses recollected them. Peto nodded grimly; he only wished he had caught the other on the hop so. Now he must sink the fireships.

Midshipman Simpson’s voice was suddenly urgent. ‘Two-decker dead ahead!’

Peto could see nothing ahead but smoke. There should have been no Turk battle-ship in this quarter; had Simpson seen the
Genoa
?

The white smoke was suddenly flame. Shot smashed into
Rupert
’s prow, bowled along the gangways, ricocheted into waist or quarterdeck, bringing down the netting. Splinters swept the upperworks like grapeshot. Men fell like skittles at a fair, mashed to a bloody pulp. Others were carried off as if by hurricane.

‘Hard a-starboard!’ bellowed Peto, though he was but five paces from the helm. He turned, to see two of the quartermaster’s mates now corpses, and Veitch himself covered in blood.

By the taffrail lay Midshipman Simpson writhing crazily, his entrails on the deck like offal at a slaughterhouse. Peto motioned to the third lieutenant, who looked at him with an expression of hopelessness. He angered. ‘Mr Durcan, do your duty, sir!’

Durcan sprang to horrified life. With two marines, he carried Simpson to the side and cast him into the water – a ghastly, merciful end to his torment.

Peto swallowed hard. ‘Mr Pelham!’

There was no answer.

Lambe was now at his side. ‘No option but to fight it out, Mr Lambe.’

‘Ay-ay, sir,’ he replied doggedly, raising the speaking-trumpet. The upper- and quarterdeck batteries had suffered sorely: ‘All hands to starboard!’

Peto turned to the poop. ‘Mr Pelham!’

A faltering voice answered. ‘Mr Pelham is killed, sir.’

Peto turned back, biting his lip. ‘Mr . . . Bullivant!’

The Turk followed with grape. A hail of iron scythed across the quarterdeck as
Rupert
got off a ragged broadside.

‘Sir?’

‘Mr Lambe?’

‘I asked if—’

Peto fell back, staggering, then to the deck, his face all astonishment. His right shoulder was cleaved in two, his chest was a sea of blood, his right leg looked as if it were all but torn from the hip.

‘Mr Durcan, two marines, at the double!’ Lambe knelt beside his captain, in utter dismay. He had not known him a full month, and yet . . . ‘Get a hammock to bear the captain below!'

Peto struggled to support himself on his left arm, despite Lambe’s entreaties. He knew from long years’ observation that he had but a minute or so before the pain would bear upon him too greatly, and he had always known what he must do in that minute’s grace. ‘My signal midshipman, Mr Lambe. He must come with me below.’ He would have his orders properly recorded, for there would be periodic bouts of lucidity in the cockpit.

‘Of course, sir.’ He turned to Durcan. ‘Mr Pelham, hurry.’

‘Pelham is dead, sir.’

‘Then Bullivant.’

‘Ay-ay, sir.’

Peto’s face was now ashen. ‘Mr Lambe, see that the landing party is properly supported.’

‘Ay-ay, sir.’

‘And there is the cutter.’

Lambe nodded. In the din of continual firing it was as certain an acknowledgement as ‘ay-ay’.

Peto’s strength began to fail. ‘Keep close on the flag, Mr Lambe; that way you will not do much wrong.’

‘We shall do our duty, sir. Have no fear of it.’

The marines laid the hammock beside him. Two more, themselves bloody, joined them. ‘Take him up gently, men. Mr Bullivant, stay by the captain’s side. Make careful note of his instructions.’

Peto breathed deeply as they bore him up, as he knew he must (though the pain of doing so increased with each breath). To close his eyes, to give in to the pain, would be to risk not opening them again. He had seen it time and oft. Until he was in the surgeon’s charge he must look to himself. And he would leave the quarterdeck –
his
quarterdeck, committed in temporary charge only to Lambe – with his eyes open, for he was captain still.

But he could not turn his head in the hammock, and he lay deep. All he could see was masts, and rigging, and sail . . . exactly as they would have been on
Nisus
 . . . first post command . . . as if it had been yesterday . . . simpler days . . . harder days . . . happier days? They were taking him to the orlop: he had never been carried below . . . he must tell Pelham to make a note . . . Elizabeth . . .

His eyes closed.

By diminishing light, down ladders, along decks, under tarpaulins, over wreckage, they brought him to the cockpit, as hot and airless a place as an oven. A handful of purser’s dips lit the wretched scene, dimly. Peto’s eyes opened and closed, but he said nothing. Midshipman Bullivant’s eyes streamed. He did not in the least know his captain, but he knew the service.

The marines bore the hammock as if they bore the bones of a saint, for the captain embodied their own sense of worth. They laid him at the surgeon’s feet, and wiped the sweat from their brows. ‘The captain, sir,’ said the corporal, softly.

Peto opened his eyes. He felt numbness rather than pain. He knew it boded ill, yet he was thankful for it. ‘Mr Morrissey, I—’ He blinked in the sudden light of the mate’s lantern. ‘Miss Codrington! What do you do here, girl? I said you were to—’

‘
Easy
, sir,’ said the surgeon. ‘Miss Codrington has been working in the cockpit since we began the action, and admirably so.’

Rebecca said nothing, aghast at the sight before her . . . yet determined to continue,
admirably
.

Peto could not find the breath to protest. A searing pain in his neck required all his powers of self-mastery.

A loblolly boy began cutting away his coat, while Rebecca sponged his brow.

‘Miss Codrington,’ he managed, barely audible: ‘in my pocket, a letter . . . from Miss Hervey; take it . . . keep it safe.’

Rebecca stayed the loblolly boy’s work by the gentlest of glances, then edged her hand inside the torn and bloody coat, not daring to blink lest the tears fall from her eyes. She found the precious relic, the little oilskin package, and took it from the pocket, tenderly, as the nurse takes up the newborn. And, struggling to breathe the words, she gave him her pledge: ‘I will keep it safe, Captain Peto. I will keep it safe.’

XVIII
THE BANNS OF MARRIAGE

London, 8 May 1828

After spending the better part of the day in the War and Colonial Office, elaborating (unnecessarily in his opinion, for Eyre Somervile’s despatches and estimates of expenditure were admirably clear), Hervey went to the Horse Guards. Soon the comfortable thoughts that had accompanied him from Golden Square to Downing Street – the resolution of his unhappy status, and the prospect of returning to the Cape in the company of wife and child – were, if not dashed, then considerably spoiled.

Lord John Howard took him to a small ante-room on the other side of the building rather than see him in his office as before.

‘I’m afraid matters appear to have taken a turn for the worse, Hervey. I saw the depositions yesterday which the Sixtieth’s commanding officer and the superintendent of the mills have made: Lauderdale from the adjutant-general’s office let me have sight of them, at some risk to himself I might add, and I fear they may be construed as suggesting you acted hastily.’

‘Hastily?’ Hervey looked at him in utter disbelief. ‘When there were riflemen firing as if it were . . . ?’ He shook his head. ‘No, I shall not go down that road. There’s no blame to be attached to that corps, any more than to mine.’

Howard raised his eyebrows. ‘I should not be too reluctant to defend yourself were I you. There may be – how can I put it? – some predisposition on the part of others, in and out of uniform, to lay the blame on men on horses.’

‘Oh, great God! Silly, petty jealousies . . .’

‘No doubt they play their part. It is enough to wear a pelisse and carry a sabre to enrage some. The trouble is, since the Peter’s Fields affair—’

‘Spare me, Howard. The home secretary wanted resolute action at Waltham Abbey, and now he appears to be shrinking from it on account of . . . what? Not on any humane principle, as far as I can see, but over a rotten borough in Sherwood Forest!’

‘Something of a simplification—’

‘And why, might I add, was “Peterloo” so wretched an affair? Because the butchers and bakers of the Manchester Yeomanry were called on, rather than regular troops. How so? Because there were not enough regulars, because the selfsame parliament that howled so much then, and continues to, has disbanded so many regiments of cavalry since Waterloo. Indeed, three more
since
the Peter’s Fields affair!’

Lord John Howard smiled ruefully. ‘My dear friend, your vehemence – I may say eloquence – is wasted on me, as well you should know. You will have many supporters in parliament if the inquiry goes ill: that much I may say with certainty. I think you might count on the prime minister himself for one!’

Hervey looked suddenly less sure. ‘You think it will become such a business – taken up in parliament?’

Howard shrugged. ‘That may have been Lord Palmerston’s very design in demanding an inquiry of the Horse Guards. Let me put it this way: there’s such suspicion of the Duke of Wellington in some quarters, his turning coat and favouring the Catholics on Emancipation – the Test and Corporation Acts will be voted tomorrow – and on Reform, too,
and
the Corn Laws. Anything that might serve as a whipping board.’

Hervey groaned. ‘I had rather thought Palmerston could not be a mover in such a thing – so many years at the War Office and all.’

‘He is by no means the only uneasy bedfellow in the duke’s cabinet, though it is true that it was he who pressed for the inquiry. He is a most diligent Secretary at War, of that there is no doubt.’ Howard raised his eyebrows again, and the rueful smile returned. ‘But, Hervey, he is first and foremost a politician!’

Hervey bridled. His friend had been too long in the proximity of placemen: how dare he sport so! ‘I think I am better out of this viperous nest.’ He rose.

Howard, cut to the quick, angered at what he perceived was his friend’s growing inclination to see insult and injury where none was intended. ‘Hervey, if you will permit me to say so, your attitude is offensive. Do not presume that your distinguished service gives you licence to sneer at this place.’ By which he also meant at himself.

Hervey hovered between defiance and remorse. He took three steps towards the door before turning. He sighed and shook his head.

But his friend spared him the discomfort of an explanation, or even apology. ‘My dear Hervey, if my manner led you to believe I did not – that any here did not – regard your conduct at Waltham as admirable in the extreme, then I am at fault and I am sorry of it. Bear up, my friend. If the worst comes to the worst there will be idle speculation in the press; but what harm can that do when the commander-in-chief himself is so strongly disposed towards you?’

Hervey felt like saying that he had his aged parents to think of, which was true, although it did not very greatly exercise him, for they were stalwart enough, even if his mother was somewhat inclined to the vapours; but what was more true was that he could not be at all sure how it would go with Kezia, and her father. Until the banns were read . . .