Hazard of Huntress

by V. A. Stuart

  “Of course, sir.”

  “And perhaps,” Sir Edmund went on, “you would have them make a signal to the Miranda. I should like my son Jack to dine with me—unless, of course, I’m invited to dine with the Commander-in-Chief which, in the circumstances, is not beyond the bounds of possibility. What do you think?”

  Both Mends and Cleeve eyed him uncertainly for a moment and then both smiled, evidently sharing the same wry joke. “It’s not beyond the bounds of possibility, sir,” the Flag-Captain replied, his voice carefully flat. He and the Secretary went out together and, left alone, Admiral Lyons again picked up the letter from the First Lord. His steward, unbidden, brought him fresh coffee, poured out a cup for him and silently withdrew.

  “I have offered to Admiral Stewart at Malta the post of second-in-command under you,” Sir James Graham had written. “I know not whether he will accept, but I am quite certain, if it takes effect, that his appointment will be agreeable to you.”

  It would indeed, the Admiral reflected. Rear-Admiral Sir Houston Stewart, as Admiral Superintendent in Malta, had given him splendid support when he had been compelled, at very short notice, to ask for an unprecedented supply of small boats and pontoons in order to land the British Expeditionary Force, with its horses and guns, at Calamita Bay. Yes, as the First Lord had supposed, the appointment of Houston Stewart as his second-in-command was most agreeable to him; he could ask for no better man. And their relationship would be infinitely more cordial, he told himself, than his own had been with Admiral James Deans Dundas who—although aware of the imminence of his departure—had seen fit only to invite his successor to a dinner on board the Britannia, at which his farewells had been shared by all the senior Fleet captains. Sir Edmund shrugged his slim, slightly bowed shoulders and read on.

  “In this case,” the letter informed him, “Admiral Stopford will go to Malta, and I wish to know with as little delay as possible if Captain Grey—now next for promotion as a rear-admiral—would be acceptable to you as Captain of the Fleet. When the command of Hannibal is vacant, this ship would be excellent for the flag of the second-in-command, though I have told Admiral Stewart that I cannot promise Hannibal …”

  A frown puckered Admiral Lyons’s smooth brow as he read the First Lord’s inquiry concerning the appointment of a Captain of the Fleet—an undefined position that, under Admiral Dundas, had been filled by Montagu Stopford. Had not Stop-ford himself described it as so undefined a position as to be a false one? And he had added, with some feeling, that “few men capable of fulfilling what was expected of a Captain of the Fleet would remain long in the appointment.” Even Nelson had found it very inconvenient when he’d had his friend, Admiral George Murray, in this capacity off Toulon and had afterwards declined to appoint a Captain of the Fleet, although his Fleet had been increased to forty sail-of-the-line. Edmund Lyons’s expression relaxed. What Nelson could do he, surely, would also be permitted to do; and Sir James Graham, judging by the wording of his question, was leaving the final decision to his new Commander-in-Chief. He knew Frederick Grey for an able but, perhaps, over-ambitious officer and guessed, although Sir James Graham had not hinted at this, that Grey, who possessed considerable influence in political quarters, had probably contrived to have his name put forward for the appointment.

  Well, if there were no such appointment in his Fleet, then Grey could hardly complain if he weren’t given it. The Admiral reached for his pen and, dipping it into the inkwell, wrote in the margin of the letter: “No Captain of the Fleet. Quote Nelson for precedent.” He replaced the pen and read Sir James Graham’s last two paragraphs.

  “We must have some of the sailing ships long in commission brought home without delay,” the First Lord warned. “We have sent you some screw line-of-battle ships and will send one or two more. …” The Royal Albert, Hannibal, St. Jean d’Acre, and Princess Royal had all been promised to him, in earlier despatches, Admiral Lyons recalled and he hoped that Their Lordships would heed his urgent request for more light draught steam-screw frigates, of the Arrow and Huntress class but … there was no mention of gunboats. He read on.

  “We have just heard of the fatal effects of the hurricane of the 14th, and have written to Admiral Dundas on the subject of a station for ships-of-war and transports during winter. I know not whether Sinope can, in present circumstances, be made available but I suspect that communication with the Army for stores, ammunition, provisions, and its daily wants, must be kept up by a constant stream of steamers between Balaclava and the Bosphorus. This winter will tax all your skill and energies, but the prize at stake is worthy of more than ordinary efforts.”

  The letter ended with cordial expressions of goodwill and an assurance of the writer’s full confidence in him, and Admiral Lyons smiled as he folded the two thin sheets of paper and placed them in his private letter book. His smile faded as he permitted himself to reflect what, in fact, the “constant stream of steamers between Balaclava and the Bosphorus” would mean in terms of men and effort—and not only between Balaclava and the Turkish capital.

  There were nearly 40,000 Turks, with their arms, horses, and equipment, to be transported from Varna and Baltchik across the Black Sea to Eupatoria. Glad though he was to leave the defense of that place in the capable hands of Cannon and Omar Pasha, his resources were being strained to their limit, for the French naval Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Hamelin, had been able to offer only two steam frigates to assist him in his task. Admiral Dundas, on receiving Lord Raglan’s request that he provide transport for the Turkish troops, had— typically—acceded to it and then delegated responsibility for the whole complex operation to himself, offering no suggestion as to how it was to be accomplished. That they had contrived to convoy some 9,000 Turks to Eupatoria already was, Sir Edmund decided, a miracle. The hurricane of 14th November had taken a greater toll of supply ships and troop transports than of the ships-of-war, it was true. But many of the latter had suffered severe damage and had, of necessity, to be sent to Constantinople for repair before they were fit for service. The repairs had taken weeks—some were not yet completed—and, as a result, he had been compelled virtually to abandon the blockade of all the Russian Black Sea ports except Sebastopol and use the warships as transports.

  He drained his coffee cup and sighed as he refilled it, turning now to the rest of his mail. Most of the other letters he had received were family ones. His sister Catherine had written as usual, he saw, blessing her for her constancy. She had never married and he was coming to depend upon her more and more, he realized, since the death of his own beloved wife. No one could take Augusta’s place in his heart. He missed her deeply, conscious always of an abiding pain whenever he thought of her, but Catherine, good, kind soul that she was, did her best and kept him in touch with family affairs, seldom missing a mail.

  The Admiral read her letter first, then a much shorter one from his elder son, Bickerton, which he put aside in readiness to show to Jack later on. Not that the boy had a great deal to tell either of them. His daughter, Minna, had written a much longer epistle, which contained news of her daily doings, snippets of local and family gossip, and an amusing account of some of the escapades of his eight-year-old grandson, who would one day be heir to the Duchy of Norfolk. This letter, too, he set aside for Jack to read, aware of an unaccustomed feeling of nostalgia.

  His had always been a close-knit and devoted family. Even during the eventful years between 1835 and 1849, when he had been British Minister to the Court of King Otho of Greece, he and Augusta had seldom been parted from their children for very long. They had taken the two girls, Anne and Minna, out with them to Athens; Bickerton, after coming down from Cambridge, had been appointed to his own diplomatic staff, and Jack, who had entered the Navy in 1829, had served as a midshipman on the station. Both his daughters had married well, the Admiral reflected fondly, and both had made the acquaintance of their husbands in Athens. Minna’s wedding to young Fitzalan, eldest son of the Earl of Surrey, had taken place in
London in June 1839, but pressure of political events in Greece had compelled him to remain at his post, so that only her mother had been present. The Admiral closed his eyes, remembering.

  His elder girl, Anne, had fallen head over heels in love with a charming young Bavarian nobleman, Baron Philip de Wurtzburg, who had been brought up with King Otho and had accompanied him to Greece as his aide-de-camp. Although Philip de Wurtzburg was a favorite of hers and a frequent visitor to the Embassy, Augusta had been opposed to the marriage at first, fearing that, if Anne were the wife of a German national and permanently resident abroad, they would lose touch with her, but the young couple had been passionately in love and, in the end, Anne had overcome her mother’s objections. The wedding, a magnificent affair, had taken place in Athens with the King and Queen in attendance, at the end of 1839. Both his daughters’ marriages had turned out well, in their different ways, Edmund Lyons reflected. Both girls were ideally happy and Anne, although living abroad, did keep in touch—less so, perhaps, since her mother’s untimely death in March 1852, soon after he had been transferred to Stockholm.

  His sons, on the other hand, had not married, although Bickerton—named after his old Chief, Rear-Admiral Sir Richard Bickerton, under whose command he had first gone to sea in the Terrible in 1788—was thirty-seven and Jack only two years younger. In Jack’s case it was understandable, since he was in the Navy and had only recently attained post-rank. He loved the Service and was dedicated to his profession, but for Bickerton, who was in the Diplomatic Corps and who could well afford a wife and family, there was no excuse. Indeed, if he were to hope for advancement in his career, he would need the backing of an attractive, well-bred wife to entertain for him and …

  There was a brisk knock on the door of his cabin, he heard the Marine sentry on duty outside ground his musket, then the door opened and he looked up to see his son Jack standing there.

  “Come in!” he invited, thrusting the rest of his letters aside. “Come in, my dear boy … I’ve been wanting to see you.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Jack in a deep pleasant voice. They greeted each other warmly, the Admiral regarding his son with conscious pride. He was both proud and fond of all his children, but Jack—who bore his own Christian name and that of the commander of his first ship, Richard Moubray—was his special pride and the one with whom, in their adult years, he had most in common. The boy looked like his mother and was coming increasingly to resemble her, he thought. He had her merry eyes, her smiling, sensitive mouth with its upturned corners and curiously—since in all other respects he was very masculine—her slim, delicately shaped hands with their long fingers. Her hands and, he knew from earlier observation, also her fore-shortened life line, which crossed only half his palm. It was absurd to give credence to the gypsy superstition, which suggested that the lines on a hand could foretell its owner’s future, but Augusta, too, had had similar lines on her palm and she had been much too young to die. He bit back a sigh and forced himself to echo Jack’s smile as his steward, without instructions, brought in fresh coffee.

  “Ah!” the younger man exclaimed, with relish. “Hot coffee … just what I could do with, I must confess. It’s foul, snowing hard, and the snow freezing as it falls. My gig’s midshipman had difficulty in finding your ship in the murk, believe it or not.”

  “I believe it,” Sir Edmund Lyons assured him. He waved hospitably to the coffee. “Help yourself, Jack, and then sit down. The mail has arrived and I’ve letters for you to read.”

  “One in particular, sir?” his son suggested.

  “What makes you think so?”

  Jack Lyons laughed. “My dear Father, there was an atmosphere of such excited pleasure on the quarter-deck that I felt it before I set foot on board. Willie Mends looks as if a maiden aunt has just died and left him a fortune and he could hardly resist telling me the good news himself, without waiting for you to do so! And Fred Cleeve is dancing about like a dog with two tails. With all this snow piling up, he’ll break his neck if he’s not careful. Even your Jacks know there’s something in the wind, so do not, I pray you, keep me in suspense. You are our new Commander-in-Chief, are you not?”

  The Admiral inclined his head gravely. “I’m informed by the First Lord that my commission has been sent out. But”— he shrugged—“as you know, it is for Admiral Dundas to decide when I am to read it.”

  “The Furious is preparing to get under way, sir,” Jack informed him. He held out both hands, the affection in his voice and eyes causing a lump to rise suddenly in his father’s throat as he clasped the proffered hands and they smiled at each other for a long moment in silence. Then Jack said, a faint catch in his voice, “My most sincere congratulations, Father. I am truly glad, for your sake and that of the whole Fleet and, like every other officer and seaman, I shall he proud to serve under your command. Now, at last, we shall be able to make plans for the future—plans for action that will justify our presence here and make a real contribution to the war we’re supposed to be fighting, instead of seeing our ships used as glorified troop carriers.”

  “When the winter is over, not before,” his father reminded him. “And when Their Lordships send me the steamers I must have, if any action whatsoever is to be possible. Sir James Graham visualizes our winter role as that of nursemaids to the Army, I may tell you!”

  “Does he? Ah, well, even the Crimean winter cannot last for ever, praise be.” Jack Lyons sipped his coffee appreciatively, his expression quizzical as he eyed his father over the rim of his cup. “And spring must follow it. But,” he added, his tone wryly disrespectful but without malice, “I had last spring under Old Charlie Napier’s command.”

  “Under his nominal command,” the Admiral amended. “You weren’t in the Baltic for long.”

  “True, sir. Needless to tell you, though, it was not his idea to send our detached squadron to the White Sea. He was quite staggered when Ommanney made his report on the venture but all he said was, ‘Och, you’ll all have made a tidy wee sum in prize-money, will ye no’?’ and then, after thinking about it, ‘But I don’t doubt ye’ll have cost Her Majesty a fortune in powder and shot and all to nae other purpose than tae line your ain pockets.’ Ommanney, who had expected a pat on the back at least, was quite speechless.” Jack grinned wryly. “In spite of his famous ‘sharpen your cutlasses’ signal when war was declared, Old Charlie didn’t exactly encourage the ships under his command to engage the enemy if it could be avoided.”

  His father sighed. “Poor Charlie Napier is an old man,” he defended. “But in his day there weren’t many to touch him, you know. As a Member of Parliament he’s done a great deal to improve the pay and conditions of our seamen and with complete altruism, for he did not endear himself to Their Lordships when he spoke up on behalf of the lower deck, as you may imagine. Perhaps he wasn’t the right man for the Baltic command, perhaps he’s too old for it, too disillusioned—but who else was there? Cochrane’s nearly eighty, Parker well into his seventies, and Seymour was in the West Indies when the appointment was made … the Cabinet hadn’t much choice. Sir James was against him, of course.”

  “I should have preferred Cochrane, even at eighty,” Jack stated with conviction. “And he was willing to accept the command, if rumor is to be believed.”

  “Too willing, I’m afraid.” His father shrugged. “But Old Charlie is a fine seaman. Did you know that he was the first man actually to fit paddle-wheels to a naval vessel? Harry Keppel served under his command in the Galatea in about 1830 and I recall his telling me that Napier started using paddle-wheels then. They were his own design and were propelled by iron winch handles attached to stanchions on either side of his main deck, operated by hand.”

  Jack smiled. “He and Keppel aren’t on such friendly terms now, sir. You know what a fire-eater Keppel is … well, he and Lord Clarence Paget worked out a splendid plan for an attack on Cronstadt, I was told. They even made a reconnaisance of the harbour in Lord Lichfield’s private yacht and submitted t
heir plan, with sketches of its defences, obtained at not inconsiderable risk. But Old Charlie would have none of it.” Jack’s smile widened. “He said it couldn’t be done. When I was ordered home, I heard that Keppel, Paget, and Elliott were being referred to as ‘the Three Mutineers,’ because they voiced their disappointment rather strongly when Old Charlie also turned down a scheme they had for an attack on Sweaborg.”

  “H’m … the St. Jean d’Acre and the Princess Royal are, I hope, to join my flag sometime in the spring,” the Admiral said thoughtfully. “I trust that Harry Keppel and Lord Clarence may yet find opportunities for the action they crave but …” He spread his hands in a resigned gesture. “To be honest, Jack, I am not at all sure that they will.”

  Jack regarded him with raised brows and asked incredulously, “Under your command, Father? Surely—”

  “Yes, under my command. You have not been here very long but you must already have heard and seen enough to realize that mine will hardly be an independent command. Oh”—as Jack started to protest—“I don’t mean that I have to take orders from Lord Raglan, far from it. And he is, in any event, the most considerate of men, always ready to discuss his strategy and share his problems with me. I like and admire him immensely and our relationship could not be better but his main problem is the same as my own—that of obtaining the support and the full co-operation of our French allies. That is a problem which—confidentially, Jack—neither of us has yet been able to solve.”