The Devil to Pay (5 page)

‘Mr Bird on deck.’

Birdy, as he was known, was a compact, muscular and quick-witted fellow and he arrived with proper alacrity added to which he at least, if he shared the opinion of his shipmates, had the wits to keep it hidden. There was nothing in those bright questioning eyes to hint at despair or even concern.

‘We will need to lighten the ship and the first thing we can do is start the water barrels.’ Again Pearce was faced with that split-second pause, which meant the man was
considering the wisdom of compliance, set against what should have been automatic. ‘So get the pumps rigged to get it out of the bilge.’

‘You reckon we can get clear, your honour?’

Lie, say ‘of course’, was the first thought that came to mind, only to be dismissed. Instead Pearce said. ‘All I know, Mr Bird, is that we will not do so carrying a full load of water. Ensure we are left with enough for two or three days and get rid of the rest.’

‘Cannon weigh more?’

‘In time, perhaps,’ Pearce sighed, ‘but before we come to that I must be sure we will not need them.’

‘We’ll fight?’

The grin that accompanied the question cheered Pearce mightily. ‘Of course, we’ll fight and we will take as many of those bastards to perdition as we did the last time. Now send me the carpenter and the gunner so we can establish what they can do without.’

Pearce spoke with the Kempshall twins while the pumps were being rigged – two fellows so dissimilar it was more like they had no relation to each other at all, Sam having straw-coloured hair while his brother had black. Nor were their features in any way similar. In the past they had been models of efficiency, which they were far from now, being sullen instead, showing a good indication of where they stood on the ladder of superstition.

‘Any spare timber I want it on deck ready to be slung over the side.’

‘Don’t amount to much in weight,’ replied Brad.

‘No, but it floats, which sends a signal to those sods chasing us that we intend to outrun them.’ Next he turned
to Sam the gunner. ‘We need to keep the powder, but it would aid us to ditch any more cannonballs and chain shot than we will need for a short sharp encounter. If they do come upon us they will seek to board quickly so we are not looking at any great number of salvoes.’

He stared into less than happy faces as he explained about keeping the ship’s cannon. ‘But they will go too if it comes to a race for shore. Report back to me when you have carried out my orders.’

The pumps were working now, sending a stream of water – it had only been in the barrels a day – into the blue sea, the sound competing against the groaning of the ship, for Pearce had insisted that as much sail as
Larcher
could carry be raised, not that it was extensive or impressive. Other sails were being brought up from below, heavy canvas that too was to be thrown over the side to lighten the ship when the decision was made, cables too. The log was being cast continuously by the man in the chains, who as able to say that they were at least making as much speed as previously, while the lack of breeze was removing from those brigantines the natural advantage they normally enjoyed.

Back in the cabin Pearce faced Emily, knowing he had a difficult task to perform, as first he took from his sea chest the key to the rack that held the guns. ‘I need you, my dear, to help me load a pair of pistols, which I cannot do one handed.’

‘Can you fire with any accuracy using your left hand?’ Emily asked.

‘I doubt with what I have in mind accuracy will be a problem.’

‘Do you have it in mind that I should be given one?’

‘Yes.’

There was no mistaking her look and she knew exactly what he was driving at when he responded. ‘Then know that whatever comes I will not use it. Life, any life is better than death and besides it is a mortal sin.’

‘You think it is to protect you against Barbary pirates, to give you that choice?’

‘Who else?’

‘It saddens me to say, my dear, that you may need to protect yourself from the members of the crew.’ He handed over the key, ignoring the shock on her face. ‘Now please do as I ask.’

There are occasions at sea when the entity of time loses all meaning, the only passing indicators being the ship’s bells and the creeping movement of the sun, arcing from its zenith and dropping towards the western horizon. The enemy topsails were occasionally visible from the deck now, as both
Larcher
and the pursuit rose simultaneously on the swell, while to the east, where safety lay along latitude thirty-nine degrees, there was nothing.

Dorling was on deck too, but staying away from the quarterdeck, issuing his instructions to move and adjust their top hamper in the hope of getting an ounce more speed out of the armed cutter, listening intently, as did everyone, as the cast of the log revealed if he had been successful. It was rare that his efforts made much difference in such light airs and that impacted on everyone aboard, though Pearce took some reassurance from the fact he was trying.

The tension seemed to grow as the heat of the day began to diminish, with Pearce acutely attuned to every whispered
exchange that was within his hearing and vision, at the same time well aware that there were many more taking place out of it. So many of the crew would not look at him, or if they did it was when they were sure his attention was elsewhere, occasioning that sharp snap of the head if he suddenly caught their eye.

It took him back to the feelings he had harboured as a boy, when passing round the hat to collect money from those listening to his father Adam as he lectured his audience on the way the world was constructed to hammer the poor and favour the rich. There had always been lads his own age eager to steal his collection and that added to the inherent danger of being in the company of his radical father, who was not one to flatter those who came to hear him.

Indeed he made it plain to all that if the world in which they eked out their existence was corrupt, if their lives were constrained by laws that did them down, edicts that kept in place a useless and blood-sucking monarchy and an aristocracy that supported them, they only had themselves to blame. There had been more than one occasion when his strictures had been so ill received that they had been obliged to make a hurried exit from whichever town in which Adam was hectoring.

‘Can I come on deck, John, I cannot stand being so confined.’

‘Do so, Emily,’ he replied.

The sight of her could not make matters worse, added to the fact that with the crew at their dinner the deck itself was near deserted and soon theirs would be brought up from below. He could observe the reason she wished to
be outside as she approached, no great distance, but a few steps from door to binnacle. Her brow and upper lip were both damp, as was her dress.

‘I would scare say your accommodation is ever comfortable, John, but the heat seems to get trapped within it as the day progresses.’

‘Don’t ask me to conjure up a cooling breeze, my dear, for it is the lack of one that is keeping us from perdition.’

‘Would it aid matters if I were to apologise?’

‘For what?’

‘My presence.’

‘You are here because I want you to be here,’ came the reply, in a tone that brooked no disagreement.

Realising his response had caused some hurt, he decided a change of subject would help and so he referred to those thoughts on which he had been ruminating before her interruption. Emily could not help but be drawn in to talking about a life so very different to her own provincial upbringing, where a journey of ten miles from her native Frome was a major undertaking.

In contrast the Pearces,
pere et fils
, had traversed it seemed the whole kingdom. Her man could talk of places and people she had never even dreamt of; his own fellow Scots and the Welsh, the folk of the northern regions who if they had spoken to Emily would not have been comprehended, so different was their argot and accent. Adam Pearce had set out to change the world in which he lived, taking his motherless son with him.

‘Only to end up in gaol for our efforts, or scuttling away to Paris from a writ for seditious libel and the possibility of Tyburn.’

‘It will do no good to brood on such matters now,’ Emily replied.

She had heard many times of the way the government had reacted to Adam Pearce and his pamphlets and radical speeches. If many welcomed the French Revolution as a bright new dawn, such sentiments were not shared by the government of King George or the monarch himself; they saw it as a threat to their position and reacted with venom.

The first arrest had seen them incarcerated in the Fleet prison, an experience which coloured and altered the way John Pearce thought about his fellow humans, for they had shared their cell with the dregs of humanity, folk who would steal your eyes and come back for the holes. Release came in time, but Adam Pearce was not one to heed it as a warning; if anything it made him bolder in his attacks on unearned privilege and given he put his views in writing, and such pamphlets sold well, that led to the writ for seditious libel and flight from the country.

Paris, initially welcoming a fellow spirit had turned out to be little better; those who assumed power in France were just as disinclined to let pass harsh criticism as their British counterparts. If their stay there had been the making of the son – he had enjoyed coming to manhood in a world of sensual freedom – it had eventually been the death of the father.

Michael appeared with their dinner for, much as Pearce believed it a nonsense, the ritual of the naval day said it must be eaten in broad daylight instead of the civilised evening, this made doubly unpleasant by the need to
reoccupy
his cabin. He had a quiet exchange and one that told him matters had not improved, but it was not a good
idea to talk for any time, given the Irishman was far from trusted already.

Neither he nor Emily had much appetite, even if the food was still fresh and good; there was too much danger, it was too hot for comfort, so much was left as they once more made for the deck and air they could at least breathe.

‘What will happen next?’ Emily enquired, seeing it as her duty now to draw her man away from a return to gloomy recollection.

‘Night will fall and then perhaps present us with a chance to change course unseen.’ Pearce then looked at the clear blue sky, with scarce a cloud in sight and sighed. ‘Though we will need something to change in the weather to make such a thing possible.’

Knowing Emily would speak and wishing to think he held up a restraining hand; there was scant chance of help from the conditions so he had to think of something else. If he could not evade the pursuit, how could he slow them down, which would increase the time available to make a land fall.

As of yet, nothing really serious had been done to lighten the ship; he had been waiting for darkness to act on that so as to increase the gap between him and the brigantines, which would become apparent at dawn, the idea being that the sight of the greater distance might persuade them the pursuit was useless. It was not a boundless hope, more a desperate one.

‘Mr Dorling, your presence if you please?’

The master obeyed his loud call at no great pace, as Pearce called for the gunner and the carpenter too, Emily moving to the very stern so as not to cramp them.

‘Mr Kempshall, what is the supply of slow match?’

‘Yards of it,’ Sam Kempshall replied, with something close to a sneer, the lack of any acknowledgement of Pearce’s rank very obvious but the temptation to check the man had to be put to one side. ‘Don’t use it so, seein’ as we got flintlocks?’

Pearce nodded, for slow match was only carried as a precaution against flints not working, or to cause explosions ashore when the navy went raiding. ‘And slow match burns at a steady rate, am I correct?’

‘Can be timed to near the minute.’

‘Good,’ Pearce said before turning to the master. ‘The water barrels?’

‘Empty, ‘Dorling replied, ‘and broken up.’

‘Well,’ Pearce said, addressing Brad, the second of the twins, ‘I want then reassembled and let’s have them filled with seawater to seal the seams.’

The looks he was getting were of a fellow who had lost his wits and, oddly, that cheered Pearce; he loved nothing more than confounding his fellow man and he was clearly doing so now.

‘I want bases made for rafts, to be supported by those barrels and then we will put powder and lengths of slow match upon them.’ They did not get it. ‘Do you now see, gentlemen, how we might give pause to out pursuit?’

Dorling got there first, though even he was not swift to the conclusion and when he did it was with a look of doubt that the plan would do any good. Pearce knew what he was thinking: the chances of a raft of powder blowing up near enough to damage either of the brigantines was wishing for the moon.

‘And I agree with you,’ Pearce said, when he too had advanced that thought. ‘The aim is to give them pause. Would you sail blithely on with what amounts to bombs you cannot see going off around you?’

‘You reckon they will heave to?’

‘They must, for they will have no idea of how many there are in the water. Now I suggest that matters be put in hand at once but out of sight, for it may be that they will have good view of our deck from their tops. This has to come as a surprise so it will do no good if they can discern what we are about.’

Pearce nearly added, ‘And perhaps we will blow one of them to hell, and that will lay to the same place your damned superstitions.’ He held his tongue.

These not being tasks the warrants could undertake themselves, they had to be explained to others and it was obvious whatever doubts affected their superiors, the crew shared them. This made the work painful to watch, given it was carried out with little enthusiasm and him being below decks was seen as unwelcome. There is nothing more frustrating than the desire to interfere, to chivvy the men along, while at the same time knowing it would be likely to slow not hurry them.

Pearce had to go on deck once more, to occupy himself with a telescope, dammed hard with one good arm, seeking to give the impression that he was making fine calculations about speed and distance when it fact it was merely showing away to no purpose. Yes the Barbary brigantines were gaining, but it was not so swift that matters changed with anything approaching drama, quite the reverse.

The next task was to seek to time the run of the current,
a fickle beast at best, so as to calculate the amount of slow match that would be needed to set off the powder barrels at the right time. In truth that was pure guesswork for Pearce’s rafts would not move at the same rate as bits of cork thrown over the bow and timed to the stern, even less an empty but sealed wine bottle.

Pearce reckoned they would move little; that the best calculation was to reckon them near stationary and time them to go off on that basis, which had Dorling seeking to make sense of the necessary numbers and with his now habitual lack of enthusiasm. His figures done, Sam Kempshall was set to cutting the required lengths of slow match.

At last the sun was closing in on the eastern horizon, dropping in what was a band of haze between sky and sea, which obscured any chance of observing the enemy deck. It had to be the same in reverse, a fact he checked with the fellow placed aloft for that very purpose. It was frustrating to then have to order the making of the kind of slings necessary to get his bombs into the water, something that previously would have been done without a word from him.

It was a relief to see the great golden orb first touch water, to begin to go red as it picked up the dust that existed in the air, even at sea, the residue of desert sand carried on the wind all the way from the Sahara. Then it was gone, leaving a short glow, the first stars already beginning to show, for the transition from day to night in the Mediterranean is swift. Soon the sky was a mass of them again, while the moon, huge and as low as had been the sun, was now the colour of cheese, changing to white as it rose.

The makeshift rafts lay on the deck, six of them, with half barrels of powder given that full ones might be too heavy and cause them to sink. Gingerly, and by the light of nothing but the stars and the moon, they were lifted over the side to sit on the water, before being gently poled clear to ensure they did not snag on the ship.

At first they were obvious, the glow of the slow burning match visible. But that soon faded and, given they were as dark as the sea on which they sat, like their enemies they had no idea of where those rafts were. Pearce was wondering if the Jonahs would now be predicting it would be
Larcher
that would suffer from this folly that they would explode hard by to crack her hull. There was a new fellow aloft, but just as in daylight there was no mistaking the pursuit; their sails picked up the moon and starlight with ease, their bow waves the phosphoresce of the breaking water. To order a change of course would do no good, merely adding to the distance to shore.

The light on the binnacle had been shaded, likewise the stern lantern had not been ignited, so there was a ghostly feel to their progress, aided by a wind that was not strong enough to make their rigging whistle. Almost everyone was on deck, no one was in their hammock, some trying to appear indifferent, most unable to avoid staring over the stern, like their captain waiting, he with his watch in his hand, for the first barrel to explode.

As it was two went off at once and a goodly distance from each other, sending great flashes of orange light into the night sky. Pearce waited for a cheer and he waited in vain and nor did that come when the rest of the slow match hit the powder on another, blowing the barrel to
matchwood. Had they gained what he had hoped, had the enemy let fly their sheets and hove to? In the available light, there was no way of telling for certain but the indications of their presence, flashes of canvas and that bow wave did seem to disappear.

Five having gone off, the wait for the last seemed interminable and in the end it never came and neither did the prayed for miracle; that one would get so close as to blow in the scantlings of one of those brigantines. Perhaps the raft had sunk or the match had been extinguished by a freak wave. They would never know and slowly the deck cleared as the men went below to their slumbers, or in some cases to their rumblings of discontent.