Tide of War (19 page)

“A glass of wine for myself and the lieutenant,” Nathan instructed the steward, callously avoiding his eye for he feared to think what negotiations might be involved in the transaction.

“ Well, I congratulate you, Mr. Pym,” he said as soon as the Angel had departed, scowling, on his quest. “The state of the ship does you credit and despite all that you have had to endure.”

Pym lowered his head in acknowledgment of the compliment but his expression remained guarded.

“My one concern at present,” Nathan went on, “is the morale of the crew.”

“I am more concerned myself, sir, that we are so short-handed.”

“And yet you have three of them in irons,” Nathan pointed out with an amiable smile.

“I regret the necessity but I felt it incumbent upon me …”

“What are their names?”

“Connor, Murphy and O'Neill.”

“More Irishmen?”

“And known associates of the mutineers.”

“And is that their only offence?”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“Is that the only reason they are confined?”

“I would have thought it sufficient, sir. With what happened to the captain I felt it necessary, for the safety of the ship, to confine any men that were suspect.”

“My God.” It dawned on Nathan at last. “You mean they have been confined in that hold since the cutter was took?”

“They were allowed ashore when we were on New Providence and Ragged Island,” replied Pym stiffly, “though kept in irons with a guard on them at all times.”

“But they took no part in the mutiny?”

“Not in the mutiny as such.”

“You have evidence that they intended to take part in it?”

“Not as such but—”

They were interrupted by the return of the Angel Gabriel with a bottle of red wine and two tall glasses of cut crystal. Also a small plate of small cakes. Nathan had not timed him but he reckoned it could not have been above two minutes. Highway robbery was not a bad apprenticeship for a steward in the King's service.

“Thank you, Gabriel. Set it down and I will see to it.”

Nathan waited until he was gone. He kept his voice low. “I mean no criticism, Mr. Pym, or disrespect and I beg you will not be offended but I think those men must be freed.”

“I must advise against it, sir. In my view they constitute a grave danger to the safety of the ship.”

“And yet there is no charge against them. And they were in no way involved in the mutiny.”

“Not in the incident itself but all three were …” He saw by Nathan's eye that he had no need to remind him that they were known associates of the mutineers. “And the big one, Connor, was the particular companion of Liam Brady, gunner's mate, who was the ringleader. I do not know why they did not take part in the mutiny but they are all three, in my opinion, steeped in sedition, and Connor—I do not know if you saw the size of him—a great brute of a man and dangerous, a danger to the ship and the crew. And to let him free to practice his sedition …”

But Nathan was shaking his head firmly. “We cannot keep men locked up indefinitely for the fear that they may one day rise up against us.” He forestalled Pym's protest by raising his hand. “God, man, we would have to lock up half the crew on every ship in the fleet.” He poured the wine into two glasses, noting with satisfaction that his hand remained steady. “No, I think we may declare an amnesty, which is customary when a new regime, as it were, comes to power and then it will not seem as if it is a criticism of the old one.”

Pym looked like to explode but this resource being denied him by the law of physics and a recalcitrant Fate, he took the glass his captain had extended to him.

Nathan raised his glass. “Again, sir, I congratulate you upon preserving the ship, against all odds. To you, sir, and the
Unicorn”

“The
Unicorn,
” muttered Pym, if not quite through clenched teeth then with some considerable reserve.

“And now to more trivial matters. I have brought thirty marines with me from England.”

Pym started. “Thirty? Marines?” He looked about him as if Nathan might have concealed them upon his person and distributed them throughout the cabin when no-one was looking.

“Thirty-two—with their lieutenant and sergeant. All of whom will have to be accommodated. But being short-handed I suspect this will not be too much of a struggle for you and indeed they will be
of assistance in deterring any further disturbances among the people. I left them aboard the
Speedwell.
They will arrive shortly. Then there are my own people. Mr. Tully, whom I should have introduced, was my number one aboard the
Speedwell
and master's mate on the
Nereus.
Unless you have an objection, I would like to make him up to acting lieutenant. He is entirely capable of keeping a watch. The two youngsters are in the capacity of volunteers first class and will berth with the midshipmen.”

Pym opened his mouth once or twice, but any objection, if it was contemplated, failed to make it past his throat.

“Then there is Gilbert Gabriel, my steward, whom you have met. I would wish him to continue in this capacity and to be quartered nearby. I will speak to Kerr privately about this and see if there is any other capacity in which he would wish to serve. Otherwise, as one of the captain's servants, I suppose he must be set ashore with the means to seek passage for England. And finally there is Mr. Imlay …”

He drew breath but before he could embark upon Mr. Imlay, there came a knock upon the door and a midshipman was admitted, nervously clutching his hat.

“Mr. Webster's compliments, sir,” he addressed Nathan, “and the British consul is coming aboard.”

“Mr. Portillo,” Nathan greeted the consul with a broad grin as he stepped upon the deck. “I am glad to welcome you aboard, sir.”

He assumed it was in response to his invitation but the consul had a more practical reason for his visit.

“I have news for you that I deemed too important to leave to a messenger,” he told Nathan when they reached the sanctity of his cabin. “The
Virginie
has been sighted off the coast of the Floridas, a little more than two days sailing from here.”

F
IRE AS YOU BEAR!”

A moment when the wind seemed to hold its breath, the sails flapping idly against masts and spars and the tackle creaking gently in the blocks …

Then the tremendous rippling broadside, splintering the torpid air into a million pieces and rolling away across the calm waters of the Gulf.

Nathan kept his countenance severe, his hands clasped composedly behind his back as was befitting for a post captain in His Britannic Majesty's Navy, the captain of a 32-gun frigate no less and a veteran of the Battle of the Glorious First of June, though he could have grinned in awed delight and clapped his hands like a schoolboy.

Silence. A bruised, shattered silence. A greater silence than before after the deafening roar of the great guns, secured but still smoking against the open ports. Nathan bent his head towards Mr. Shaw, captain's clerk, who stood at his side with his chronograph and his notebook.

“Four minutes, sixteen seconds, sir.”

Shaw's funereal features were exactly right for the conveyance of bad news and this was very bad indeed. Nathan almost stared at him in astonishment and asked him to repeat it. He had thought they
were taking their time but not as much as this. Could Shaw have miscalculated and added a minute, even two, by mistake?

“That is from the command, ‘Cast loose your guns'?”

“It is, sir.”

Four minutes, sixteen seconds. A crack frigate, it was reckoned, might fire three broadsides in the space of five minutes. Nathan met the eyes of his first lieutenant. Did they appear a trifle disconcerted? It was hard to tell. Pym, at the best of times, exuded an air of prim indignation.

“Very well, Mr. Pym, let us see if we can do any better on the other side.”

For the purposes of the practice Nathan had the gun crews firing both sides, six men to a gun, though in a duel with one other ship they would normally double up and fire one side at a time. They had obviously drilled for the most part without verbal commands—useless in battle conditions when no-one could hear a word—with the gun crews numbered off from one to six, the lowest numbers the most senior and skilled. They should have functioned like automata, each to his allotted station, but watching the next rehearsal with a new more critical awareness, Nathan concluded that the majority functioned more in the nature of headless chickens.

Powder was spilt upon the deck, rounds were dropped, men tripped over the tackle and their own feet, they got in each other's way, they even got in the gun's way as it sprang back on the recoil, causing one man serious injury. Nathan was tempted to suspend the operation at this point but he steeled himself to an unnatural callousness. In a day or two they might be fighting the
Virginie.
They had to be better than this or they would have more than one broken leg to contend with.

He watched the gun captains as they fished for the cartridge with their priming wires. Some were better at this than others but it seemed like an age before they had all cried “Home.” In went the wads and the rounds. And now the captains began to measure out the fine priming powder from their powder horns. Again, this took an
impossibly long time. What was wrong with them? It was almost as if it was the first time they had done it. Yet he knew from the logs that they had practised every day—and been flogged for getting it wrong. Was this the trouble? Were they nervous? They
looked
nervous.

The one thing they were good at was heaving upon the tackle. No problems at all there. They were quite good at the swabbing and the ramming, too. And he could not fault the guns themselves. They were beautifully maintained, not a mark on them, the tackle meticulously laid out and shining white. Even the cook's slush from the galleys—which was used to grease the wheels on the trucks—looked like it had been put through a sieve to remove any impurities.

“Four minutes, twenty-five seconds,” announced Mr. Shaw lugubriously.

Nathan ran his tongue over his teeth for want of a more satisfactory form of expression.

“Very well. We will have them fight the starboard guns only, doubling up the crews,” he informed Pym, “and this time we will give them something to aim at.”

They had made a small target from a dozen empty casks with a black flag flying from a stub of a mast and they had it towed about a cable's length to starboard. Perhaps having something to fire at would make for an improvement, Nathan thought. It did not.

The target was still there when the last gun had fired. Untouched.

“Four minutes, forty-six seconds,” reported Mr. Shaw.

“Thank God it cannot fire back,” Nathan commented under his breath, though for Tully's private gratification. “Let us hope the French are as benevolent.”

“Have they ever fired guns before?” he enquired of Pym with deadly irony. He saw the expression on his face and realised. “By God, they haven't! They have never used powder, have they?”

“Captain Kerr felt it would be wasteful, sir, to use powder in practice. At the price it is.”

Nathan shook his head. “No wonder they're bloody useless.” Not wise. Not conducive to good discipline but he was seriously out of
patience. He could not believe the
Unicorn
had sailed halfway across the world to fight a war and had never fired its guns until now. Nor was it true. Not quite.

“We fired them half a dozen times when we were with the squadron at Port Royal,” Pym informed him. “But that was as much as the Admiralty allowed for practice. After that, it must needs come out of the captain's own pocket.”

“Very well. But from now on we will practice at firing the guns every day. And this time we will really fire them.”

Even if it cost him the rest of his small fortune and he and his poor mother could go whoring together on the Haymarket.

The bell rang. Eight bells in the forenoon watch. Dinner time. At least for some, if not for Nathan. He must eat alone, an hour after the first watch. Unless he was invited to join the officers in the gunroom. He took himself off to his cabin to brood, leaving Pym to scowl over his stained and sullied decks.

She was a beautiful ship. When he first came aboard, Nathan had been rowed around her five or six times in his launch on the pretext of studying her trim, but in reality simply to admire her and take pride in his possession. Pym had done an excellent job of repairing the damage she had suffered. There was not so much as a scratch in her paintwork nor a yard out of line. Her canvas was immaculate, her scantling as elegant as an emperor's yacht and she rode the water like a swan. She might be the most beautiful ship in the King's Navy. But she was no fighting ship.

In the final resort, a ship of war was a floating gun platform, designed to sail to any place in the world and deliver a devastating broadside. And this the
Unicorn
clearly could not do. Not in anything less than four minutes sixteen seconds. And even then she'd be lucky to hit anything.

What could he do about it?

He could give them more practice, of course. He would achieve some improvement, he was sure of it. But it was not just a case of practice. There was something fundamentally wrong with the ship.
Or rather, the ship's crew. They were like men in a dream. Or a nightmare. There was a glazed, wary look about them. As if they were always looking over their shoulder.

What at? The ghost of their murdered captain?

If that was the problem it had to be exorcised. He had already made a start. He had told the officers there was to be no more flogging—not for anything less than a brawl—and even then, there was to be meticulous enquiry into who was at fault.