Winds of Folly (5 page)

‘Well, he has a reputation for winning battles,' Nathan replied shortly, for to universal astonishment, not least among the French, Bonaparte had won a series of victories over the armies of the Austrian Emperor and the King of Savoy, and advanced right across the north of Italy to the borders of Venice.

‘Oh, I doubt there will be anything approaching a battle, not here,' Fremantle assured him. ‘The Tuscans ain't got the bottle for it. And to be fair to them they ain't got the men neither.'

‘So who is doing the fighting?'

‘Oh, that is just the French vanguard announcing their presence. I think they're trying to hit
Inconstant
for I've took her close inshore on a spring cable. But the range is too long for 'em. Most of the rounds are falling on the town,' he added complacently.

‘Hence the fires?'

‘No, no, the fires were lit by Spannochi – he's the Governor here – to cover the evacuation. Stop the French from spying on us from the hills. He has told them they cannot enter the city until he has instructions from the Grand Duke. But I expect
Bonaparte will put him right about that – if and when he gets here with the rest of the army.'

Nathan nodded as if this all made perfect sense. In a mad world he supposed it did. ‘So – what are we going to do?'

Fremantle was a couple of years ahead of Nathan in the Navy List which made him the senior officer present – at least until Nelson arrived.

‘Well, we can hardly oppose them – even if the Tuscans were prepared to help us out, which they ain't. So I talked it over with old Udny and we decided to evacuate everyone that don't want to stay and take 'em to Corsica.'

‘Old Udny' being the British Consul, prize agent and pimp. A silver-haired gentleman with a mild manner who collected harpsichords.

‘Everyone?' Nathan queried.

Fremantle shrugged as if this was a minor inconvenience. ‘Every foreigner, that is, who don't fancy being here when the French arrive. We've took off most of the British already – them that's from Leghorn, that is – but they keep coming in from all over. You would think Tuscany was a British colony, the number that's living here. Some fair-looking dollies among them, too, I don't mind telling you.'

Fremantle was known to have an eye for the dollies. By all accounts he was Udny's best customer.

‘And we are taking them all to Corsica?'

‘Unless you have a better idea. I don't see we've much choice in the matter. Not the way Bonaparte's been talking. Nest of vipers, you see. Burn 'em out. Scourge 'em from the temple. Anyone who trades with the British tarred with the same brush. Hollanders, Armenians, Persians, Jews – though I hear tell the Israelites may have decided to stay, Bonaparte not being what you might call Christian.'

‘And have we got room for them all?'

‘In Corsica?' Fremantle frowned as he tried to recollect who else lived there.

‘I meant in the way of transport.'

‘Well, I've commandeered every sail that was in the port. Don't see what more I can do. Might be a bit cramped for some of them. I've given up my own cabin as a matter of fact, to an English family from Florence. Four daughters.'

Nathan thought of querying this but on second thoughts he let it pass. ‘And how long do you think it will take to get them all off?'

‘Way things are going – most of the day. Sent my Marines ashore to control them – and to hold the harbour as long as possible.'

‘And what would you like me to do?'

Fremantle considered. ‘I think you had best stay out here. Guard the transports. Once word gets out of what is happening we shall have every corsair between Nice and Genoa heading our way. Form a convoy,' he added brightly. This expression appeared to give him considerable satisfaction, for he nodded to himself several times, as if it were a salve for all life's problems. ‘You might let me have a few of your Marines, though, if you can spare them.' He finished the Madeira and picked up his hat. ‘Now I had better get back to
Inconstant
. I've taken her as close inshore as I dared – did I say?'

‘You did.'

‘Cover the coast road, d'you see? Might persuade the Frogs to stay up in the hills for a while.'

This proved to be wishful thinking. When they returned to the quarterdeck it was to find most of the officers training their glasses on the hillside where a long column of troops could be seen advancing towards the port.

‘French cavalry,' Duncan reported confidently, handing his
glass to Fremantle who observed them for a moment before declaring that he must be off.

‘If I cannot delay them we had better save what we can,' he called back to Nathan as he made for the quarter-ladder, ‘and the rest must take their chances with Bonaparte.'

Nathan sent Whiteley and his Marines after him in the
Unicorn
's two cutters – a pitifully small force to throw against the French Army of Italy, he reflected as he watched them go. But he had his own problems to consider. There were already up to a dozen transports standing out from the harbour and he had very little notion of what to do with them. For most of his fourteen years in the service the country had been at peace and he had never been called upon to perform the duties of a convoy escort, an omission that had previously appeared more a cause for congratulation than not.

‘It is usual to appoint a Commodore,' Duncan instructed him when Nathan sought his advice.

‘A Commodore,' Nathan repeated doubtfully, thinking of Nelson and the considerable authority attached to this office.

‘From among the merchant Captains,' Duncan explained, ‘with the duty of maintaining the agreed order of sailing.'

‘I see. Keeping the buggers in line.'

‘That is about the measure of it, sir.'

Nathan hesitated but Mr Duncan, being some ten years older than him, had seen service in the American War and then with the Russians during the peace. His experience was invaluable and in truth, he did not appear to resent sharing it. ‘And are there any particular principles one should acknowledge in agreeing this order of sailing?' Nathan enquired.

‘It is customary to order them in several parallel lines,' Duncan offered, ‘with the largest and better armed on the outside, the most vulnerable in the middle.'

Common sense really, thought Nathan, though he suspected it worked rather better in principle than it did in practice. But he was impressed with the notion of a Commodore, now he was aware of its limitations when applied to the merchant service. It only remained for him to appoint this unfortunate.

He surveyed the vessels currently standing off the mole. A mixed bunch. The largest and most shipshape appeared to be a barque of some 1,000 tons with a broad white stripe down her side pierced with ten black gunports. This did not mean she was endowed with as many guns, of course, but it was a promising sign and he sent young Mr Lamb over in the gig to request her Captain to come aboard.

This individual turned out to be a Scot by the name of McNabb, a cagey-looking brute of about fifty or so with the sanguine features and red and rheumy eyes of a man much exposed to the weather or the bottle, possibly both. His ship was the
Selkirk Castle
out of Leith, under permanent lease to the Levant Company. Which was not quite the East India Company but of a similar pedigree. Nathan took him down to his cabin, gave him what Fremantle had left of the Madeira, and put the proposal to him. Rather to his surprise, for he had been anticipating an argument, it was accepted with a terse nod, as if it were of no great consequence.

‘You have done this before,' Nathan guessed.

McNabb confirmed with another nod that this was indeed the case. He put Nathan in mind of those Highland cattle he had seen in landscape portraits, standing in a loch under a lowering sky. Not that he was particularly hairy or be-horned; just something in his manner suggested the comparison.

‘Well, I am very much obliged to you,' Nathan assured him with what he hoped would be an endearing grin, ‘for I confess I have no experience at all.'

McNabb did not look in the least surprised.

However, he concurred with Duncan's proposed order of sailing and suggested that Nathan post an officer in a cutter or similar vessel to convey these instructions to each of the transports as they left the mole.

‘And may I ask how many guns do you carry?' Nathan put to him as he prepared to depart.

‘Sixteen,' he replied shortly. ‘Six-pounders.'

It was more than Nathan had anticipated, and though the calibre would serve to deter only a half-hearted pirate, it was a great deal better than nothing.

‘And you have sufficient crew to fire a broadside?'

This moved the Captain to eloquence. ‘She is a Levanter, sir, not a Leith collier.'

Nathan accepted the rebuke with good grace but he did wonder about sending Holroyd over to take a look at the guns, even to stay on as gunnery officer. But it would not do at all. Not with Tully and four of the midshipmen already away in the
Bonne Aventure
and the other prizes. And many of his best seamen with them. In fact, he wondered if he might press a few prime hands from the transports but he was unsure of the ethics of pilfering seamen from ships under one's protection. Perhaps Duncan would know. He decided against consulting McNabb.

He escorted the new Commodore over the side and sent Mr Lamb after him in the gig to perform the duty they had agreed upon.

‘So you may play the sheepdog for once, Mr Lamb, but remember that a bark is more instructive than a bleat.'

Mr Lamb rewarded this poor attempt at humour with a glazed grin. He was sensitive where his voice was concerned, for though he normally had it under control it rose, when excited, to a piping treble. It would not be pleasant to spend the best part of the day in an open boat in this heat but it
would teach him how to order a convoy, which was more than Nathan had ever learned.

Once he had gone Nathan returned his attention to the shore. The cavalry appeared to have advanced no further than the outer suburbs. Certainly there appeared to be no serious attempt to attack the harbour – and the artillery had stopped firing from the hills, possibly for fear of hitting their own men. Nathan guessed they were happy enough to let the vipers flee the nest, rather than be put to the trouble of slaughtering them out of hand, or accommodating them elsewhere, for there were a good many women and children among them, and despite rumours to the contrary he did not suppose that French dragoons had any more relish for that line of work than British soldiers. But perhaps they did not like the look of
Inconstant
's guns covering the road down to the harbour. If Fremantle had her on a spring cable she could cover most of the waterfront with a lethal arc.

Nathan would have liked to moor the
Unicorn
in a similar fashion but he needed more room for manoeuvre. If there was a concerted attack by several privateers at once he might have to cut his cables. So, not wishing to lose his anchors, he had the frigate heave to with her foretopsails braced against the main, about half a mile north of the convoy with her guns run out on both sides. He now had some thirty sail gathered under his command, moored in four lines, with about half that number still waiting to load up at the mole – a considerable responsibility for just one ship-of-war, and he scanned the seas to the north and west with some concern. Happily there was no sign of the expected raiders, but nor was there any sign of
Captain
and
Meleager
– or
Bonne Aventure
for that matter, with her own small convoy.

A little before noon the lookouts in the foretop alerted him to the approach of two sails to the north-east, close into the
coast. Nathan climbed up the ratlines to have a look for himself, but his hopes were swiftly dashed. The sails were too small for Nelson and it was the wrong direction for Tully. He focused his glass on the leading vessel and then his lips moved in a silent oath, for she was long and lean with the look of a pre dator about her – and as she came closer and the smoke cleared a little he saw the tricolour flapping at her stern.

Worse, there were four more of them, emerging from the haze behind her.

‘Beat to quarters, Mr Duncan,' he instructed the first lieutenant, ‘and signal the convoy to prepare for battle.'

He wondered if he could alert Fremantle to the danger but
Inconstant
was still lost behind the press of vessels inside the harbour. He would know soon enough, however, when he heard the sound of the guns.

T
hey came out of the smoke-thickened haze to the north, five of them: spectral at first, slowly taking shape and substance. Corsairs out of La Spezia, Nathan guessed, or one of their other bases on the Ligurian coast. Legalised pirates, the wolves of the sea.

Not that he cared what they were, legally or morally, or where they came from. His chief concern was how to stop them.