Tide of War (18 page)

“And you will come and see us there,” she said, “and I will cook you the best meal you ever had, as good as we had in Le Havre when you got us out of prison.”

“That I will,” he said, knowing it was unlikely he would see her or Small or Keeble or any of them ever again.

This time they approached the frigate from her starboard side and Gilbert Gabriel hailed out
“Unicorn”
to let them know her captain was aboard.

Thus Nathan came up the steps to the unearthly shriek of the boatswain's call and the stamp and crash of the marines as they presented arms and as his head came level with the deck he was met with a startling spectacle of red, white and blue with the side boys
all in white and the marines in red and the officers assembled on the quarterdeck every one whipping off his hat as Nathan made his entrance, gazing about him as if he had every right to be here. Pym stepped forward with a bow.

“Welcome aboard, sir. Shall I present you to the officers or do you first wish me to read your commission?”

His commission. My God, where was his commission, without which he was nothing? An impostor, a mere pretender, a mountebank. He had a brief, tragic-comic image of being sent back to the
Speedwell
to find it like a chastened schoolboy. But Gabriel, the Blessed Angel Gabriel, was holding out the necessary item and Nathan took it with a brief roll of his eye for the steward's private gratification.

“Perhaps we should get the formalities over with first,” he proposed as he presented it to Pym, instantly cursing himself for not asking to be first introduced to the officers, which would have been the right thing to do—and now they must all stand there like lemons while the boatswain's call summoned all hands aft. A great rush of people from every part of the ship and most—for all Kerr's complaint—in blue jackets and white sailcloth trousers and pale straw hats. And as the weird keening died away, a shout of “Off hats” and in the silence with only the faintest of breezes ruffling the flag at her stern, Pym read out their lordship's commission, formally appointing Nathaniel Peake Esquire to the command of His Majesty's ship
Unicorn,
“willing and requiring all the officers and company belonging to the said ship to behave themselves in their several Employments with all due Respect and Obedience to you their Captain.”

And the silent ranks of attentive faces and the great walls of La Cabana rising above them and the pelicans rising and falling on the invisible currents of air and the harbour going about its business as if nothing untoward was happening in their midst. Nathan could not stop himself from glancing towards that part of the waterfront where he had left the woman in red and he did not know whether to be relieved or sorry that he could not see her.

“And you are likewise to observe as well the General Practical
Instructions and what orders you may from time to time receive from any of your superior Officers for His Majesty's Service. Hereof nor you nor any of you may fail as you will answer the contrary at your Peril. And for so doing this shall be your Order.”

The set, stoic expressions. Some eager faces, most not. Most with that look about them that said, let us wait and see; let us hope for the best while expecting the worst. Much like the crew of his first command, the
Nereus.
A cagey regard under a mask of compliance. Wondering what the tide had brought in. But something more, something he had not seen on the
Nereus
or anywhere else in the navy. What was it? A kind of despondency. They looked … whipped. Whipped into shape by a tyrant of a captain who had had his throat cut.

So that was that and now the introductions. As many commissioned officers and warrant officers, seamen and civilian, as the entire crew of the
Speedwell
and Nathan could have sworn he was the youngest amongst them, save for the midshipmen and even one of them looked his senior by several years.

Mr. Webster, second lieutenant, Mr. Maxwell, third lieutenant, Mr. Baker, master, whose log book he had read, or skipped through in the consul's house—Nathan considered a remark, rejected it, moved on … repeating the names as he heard them as if committing them to memory when in truth they sank into the murky waters of his brain without a ripple and the faces like so much flotsam and jetsam passing before his drowning vision.

Mr. McGregor, lieutenant of marines, a gaunt, grim-looking Scot with a scar on his cheek—from battle or a duel? How would he react when he discovered that Nathan had brought his own Myrmidons with him? Would he take it as a slight or be relieved at the reinforcement? Mr. McLeish, the surgeon, another Scot, young and sober-looking, unlike many a ship's surgeon of Nathan's acquaintance. Mr. Sawyer, master's mate—only one master's mate, the other having taken off in the cutter. (Declan Keane. Yes, there was one name he would remember.) Four midshipmen: Holroyd, Meadows, Fleetwood
and Lamb. Mr. McIvor, the purser; Mr. Bailey, the schoolmaster; Mr. Shaw, who was to be his clerk; Mr. Clyde, the gunner; Mr. Lloyd, the carpenter … At last Nathan found something to say that would not cause offence or reveal him as a complete fool.

“ Well, Mr. Lloyd, you have had your work cut out, I believe.”

“Aye, sir, we have that.” Bobbing his bald head and exposing a reef of broken teeth. A man of about forty, Nathan guessed, ancient by comparison with the rest of the crew, a tide of frowns rippling up from his bushy eyebrows to halfway up his shining pate, a man who knew more about the ship, the solid oaken core of her, than any other man present and might have cause for his worried expression.

“ Well, from what I have heard and seen so far you have worked wonders,” Nathan assured him, “and I would never have known the blows she has took.”

Careful now. Move on. Worried already that he might have offended Pym, who doubtless considered he was owed the credit for their survival—and was doubtless right.

Oh, what uncertain waters he sailed, what shoals and reefs, what quicksands. Better to say nothing but to bob his head this way and that with the occasional benediction of a repeated name like the god he was.

And so it went on. William Brown, master-at-arms; Jacob Young, coxswain, who had command of his barge—a bright enough lad, probably Nathan's own age or thereabouts, his eyes less guarded than the rest. The boatswain and his mates; the quartermaster and
his
mates; William Kerr, captain's steward … No trace of a falter in Pym's neutral tone and yet it dropped like a smoking grenade upon the spotless deck.

Kerr. A coincidence of names or a poor kinsman taken into service? Almost certainly the latter. The captain's steward. The man who had waited upon him at table, run his errands, washed and ironed his clothes, kept his razor stropped, might even have shaved that vulnerable throat … A thin, pinched man with a prominent Adam's apple and a reedy voice. Had his captain, his kinsman, looked like this?
What was Nathan to do with him? Consign him to outer darkness or make him subject to the Angel Gabriel? He might prefer the outer darkness. Nathan would.

Gun captains, captains of the foretop, maintop and mizzen. The smiling, perspiring faces and the guarded eyes. And that tired, uneasy, unhappy look about them that he recognised now as a look of defeat.

And with the
Virginie
still to fight. If they ever found her.

He looked to his guns. Blomefield pattern, like the sternchaser on the
Speedwell.
Twenty-six 18-pounders on her upper deck, two 6-pounders and two 32-pounder carronades on the forecastle, and four of each on the quarterdeck … Save that one of them was missing. Nathan could not help looking and noting that one significant gap, like a missing tooth, on the starboard side. But apart from that, everything shipshape and Bristol fashion. The wheels of the trucks greased with cook's slush and the wood looking as if it had been polished with beeswax. And every gun fitted with a flintlock, Nathan noted with approval.

But how fast could they fire, and how accurately? It was not a question he would ask but he would find out soon enough, just as soon as they were at sea and out of sight of the land, in case it was not as good as he hoped.

And now below. Starting with the captain's quarters—and such a wealth of space and light and polished wood and gleaming brass. Nathan stood for a moment in the door, staring as if stunned, struggling to take it in and that it was his. Day cabin, sleeping cabin, dining cabin. The sunlight lancing in through the stern windows and the motes of dust circling in the still air and the reflections of the water dancing on the ceiling. The long polished table and the chairs, the wood panelling. And the big 18-pounders on either side. A smell of soap and beeswax and coffee—fresh coffee. He wondered if Pym had made his home here during the interregnum or whether he had been too respectful, too hopeful of recovering his lost captain. Almost certainly the latter, and so it must have remained almost exactly as Kerr had left it when he had stepped out on his quarterdeck for the last
time, all unknowing, to see if the cutter was prepared and ready. And yet there was no hint of his presence now, no ghostly coat hanging upon the door, no nightcap in his cot, no pictures on the walls, or any other personal effects; all cleared away, no doubt, barely hours before Nathan had come aboard. So he would not be troubled by the ghost of the late, hapless Captain Kerr.

As if he had not felt him at his shoulder from the moment he had stepped aboard, breathing his dying breath in his ear, the dry death rattle. Reminding him that all honour, all distinction, all possession was but fleeting and could be snatched away at any moment, even upon the instant of attainment.

He turned his back upon it.

“ Very good. Now let us see the rest of the ship.”

Down to the lower deck. Cramped to a landsman or the captain of a 74, he supposed, but vast to one whose last two commands had been a brig sloop and a merchant barque. All the more room because there were no guns—they were all on the main deck—and the mess tables and the mess kits secured to the sides and the hammocks lashed and stowed in the netting up above. The officers' cabins on either side of the gunroom—canvas-and-wooden coffins eight feet square. Shafts of light pouring down from the gratings in the waist. Nathan nodding and peering about him this way and that with his curious stooping walk, his head tucked into his neck to avoid banging it on the timbers and his eyes darting about like a bird of prey, while Mr. Pym who was a good six inches shorter and had no neck and walked more or less upright, pointed out whatever he thought might be of interest—the galley with its stove and its boilers and its coppers, the animal pen with its goat and its pig and its chickens, the carpenter's store and the boatswain's store …

Down to the orlop deck and no light at all here, save for the eerie gleam that pierced the gratings from the deck above and the feeble glow of the candles in the lanterns that were carried by the quartermaster and his mate. Here was the midshipman's berth where Place and Coyle must make their quarters: a rank, unsightly place for all
the wrath that Pym must have visited upon them to make it more seemly. A table with a much-stained cloth of green. Sea chests for chairs. A row of broken-backed books on navigation and seafaring. Nails with clothing hung upon them, a pair of boxing gloves, a hanger for a sword. A cage for some small pet animal, now empty: the animal escaped or eaten. They moved on. The magazine and the store rooms, the sick berth—and here was McLeish again—rather to Nathan's surprise he remembered the name. A smiling young Scot. And now it came to him that Captain Kerr had very likely been a Scot himself. A Scot who had a poor opinion of the Irish. Had he filled the ship with officers of a like mind?

“So, Mr. McLeish, you have no patients I see.”

“No, sir, not at present …” The smile fading a little.

But of course, they were all dead. Could he say nothing that was not injurious aboard this unlucky ship? But everything was neat and tidy and very clean, the dispensary filled with medicines and ointments, the implements all present and correct.

“Very good, Mr. McLeish. Carry on, Mr. Pym.”

But for once Mr. Pym did not seem at all anxious to carry on and there on the deck ahead, halfway between the slops room for the seamen and the kit room for the marines, Nathan saw the reason why.

He stopped and stared. Glimpsed in the half light he had thought at first that they were heaps of dirty clothing, marvelling that Pym had allowed such an outrage upon his decks even here in the orlop. But they were not. They were men. Three of them. And in irons.

“What is this?”

“They are associates of the mutineers, sir, who have given cause to be restrained,” replied Pym stiffly.

They were shackled by the leg to an iron bar set into the deck and as Nathan's eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, he saw the marine sentry standing to attention in the shadows with his fixed bayonet.

“And what was their offence?”

“Their offence?”

Pym seemed surprised at the question. Nathan waited, his eyebrows
faintly raised. Pym looked at the men and they gazed back at him without movement or expression.

“They are kept as a precaution.”

It was not unusual to clap men in irons on one of His Majesty's ships—with no cells to secure them—though they were usually kept by the gunroom under one of the gratings which would provide some air and light.

“A
precaution?”

Pym looked as if he suffered some private anguish.

“May I speak to you in private, sir?”

“By all means,” Nathan agreed.

He said nothing more until they returned to his cabin and Pym and he were alone. “Let us have a glass of wine,” he proposed.

Pym looked somewhat startled at the suggestion. Perhaps he was not a drinking man. Or perhaps it had not been his previous captain's style. But where in hell's name was Nathan to find wine? He solved the problem much as he would have done on the
Speedwell
by turning slightly aside and bellowing, “Gabriel! Gilbert Gabriel there!” in a voice that would have carried to the topmasts, though the Angel Gabriel had not so far to travel, for he had been lurking as close to the door as was possible without actually leaning his ear against it and was with them with an alacrity that did not startle Nathan anything like as much as it did Pym, who lacked the advantage of knowing him from the age of five.