Words of Command (Hervey 12) (Matthew Hervey)

by Allan Mallinson

  ‘And I of men, Hervey.’

  Peto had no ship, perhaps no true prospect of a port-admiralcy either – just a folio of builder’s plans, and, of course, the devotion of a fine woman (yes, she might be called ‘woman’, to judge by her mind and air), and the wish to please her in so delightful a way. Contentment enough. More than enough. What strange things could be wrought by shot and shell.

  ‘Not so pretty as on a summer’s day, I grant you,’ said the contented captain as they bowled along with fresh horses; ‘but infinitely more diverting. A gale such as this – and, mark my words, a gale it is – will be driving some curious shipping for haven at Blakeney.’

  ‘Because it is blowing onshore?’

  ‘Exactly so. The harbour’s the best on the coast, a good retreat in a heavy sea. She’ll take vessels of four or five hundred tons – and the easiest to find on account of the church. You can see it as far as the Dudgeon light, eight leagues off.’

  ‘But in this weather may it be seen so clearly?’

  ‘No, a master who has his book of sailing directions – and there should be none without – can set his course at the light south sou’west half-south till he sees the tower, and then if he brings it to bear sou’west by south can run in that direction till the buoys. There’s a hillock half a mile to sou’ward of the harbour which you can see a full three leagues off: if he keeps the church open to the north-west of it half a cable’s length he’ll be carried to the outer buoy.’

  ‘Well,’ said Hervey, in a voice of some awe, ‘I’ve little idea of what you speak, but it sounds most scientific.’

  Peto waved his hand as if to say that was but half the story. ‘Blakeney’s a bar harbour, you see, and though she’s buoyed the sands shift. A stranger’ll be disinclined to try, though in a strong gale it’ll always be prudent to run for it rather than hazard being driven on shore. They hoist a flag on the church as a signal when you may run for it if the boats can’t be got off – the pilot boats – and there’ll be a full nine feet over the bar.’

  ‘And there’ll be ships running for harbour in this weather?’

  ‘Indeed – unless they’re big enough to stand well out in the first place. It’s the coasters from the Tyne chiefly that come across from the Humber and don’t have the sea space to round the point at Cromer. Even the steamers.’

  ‘How fascinating,’ said Hervey, and meaning it. ‘I hadn’t quite appreciated the full hazard of a lee shore. But what is a ship of five hundred tons?’

  ‘Nisus was a thousand.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Nisus could stand out to sea in any weather. A frigate’ll weather a hurricane.’

  ‘And your boat?’

  ‘Boats, Hervey: we have two, for the time being at least – an old Lukin unimmergible that’s done us well for nigh on twenty years, but Cromer’s lately bought a new and bigger boat, and we’ve taken their old one, a most seaworthy Greathead. Ten oars and broad-beamed – she can take off a dozen comfortably.’

  ‘Greathead?’

  ‘The builder, South Shields man.’

  Hervey would have shown an interest in his friend’s new ‘command’ come what may, but the matter – like any touching on innovations among men of action – was genuinely intriguing. ‘What is it that makes the boat so serviceable, besides her broad beam?’

  ‘Do you know the Norway yawl?’

  Hervey had to admit he didn’t.

  ‘The Greathead’s built along the same lines – curved keel, but rising even more fore and aft, so even when she’s inundated amidships a good third at either end’s out of the water, so she can still make headway without foundering. An’ she’s steered by an oar not a rudder, so she can be rowed either direction, and the curve makes her easy to steer about her centre, a God-send when you’re trying to take off crew from a wreck.’

  ‘And she was first at Cromer?’

  ‘Aye, but they’ve now a bigger boat. They have to reach further out than Blakeney.’

  Peto’s regard for the new Blakeney boat proved extensive – her sides cased in cork four-inch thick, copper plating securing the fenders, seven hundredweight unladen – so much buoyancy, such superiority over the former craft …

  Hervey took careful note, such as he could, and on that coasting road, with the horses’ ears pricked to the coming force and noise, with Corporal Wakefield bent so much in the saddle that his cheek brushed the leader’s mane, and Peto thrilling to the elements that had given Nisus and then Prince Rupert their power and their glory, he began to smile. The sea air, even as tempestuous as this, was so evident a tonic that all Miss Rebecca Codrington – Lady Peto as would be – need do for the perfect happiness of her adoring captain was to eat the fruit of his forcing wall and to accompany him on a daily drive to pay homage to Neptune. Admiralcy was not essential to his old friend’s self-esteem and contentment. Not for him the ambition that drove the lonelier man. Only the companionship – the love – of a good woman, to reciprocate and increase, and in a place the spirit was at ease: Happy the man, whose wish and care / A few paternal acres bound, / Content to breathe his native air / In his own ground …

  Boom!

  Peto started, like an old hunter to the horn. ‘Maroons!’

  The lookout’s urgent summons – even above the wind. Then again, like a thunder-crack.

  ‘A ship in trouble?’

  ‘For certain! Two rockets to summon the Blakeney crew.’ He leaned out of the window. ‘Corporal, make haste, if you will!’

  Wakefield let slip the rein, and kicked. They’d just crossed the Stiffkey, not three miles to the town, and he’d hardly worked the Holkham pair at all. Now he could really ask of them – if not a canter on a road he didn’t know, and one so rutted, but a flying trot, almost as good as.

  And how they flew! In ten minutes he was turning onto the harbour road.

  Peto could hardly contain himself. ‘Damme, all this time and I’ve never yet seen a boat put out!’

  Hervey counted himself fortunate indeed.

  ‘There! There she is. ’Pon my word, she was got away sharply.’

  The Blakeney boat was stationed at the furthest point of the sand spit that enclosed the harbour, with some sort of runway that got her into the water without horsepower. There was a perpetual lookout from a cottage on the sandbank (sand spit, all but) with a watch three miles east and west, at whose signal the Blakeney fishermen would rush to their boats and thence to the point of the spit to man the Greathead. There’d been an unpleasant business of late, Peto said, though before his time, when the boatmen had been laggardly, wanting to stay their hand till a master actually called for salvage, when they could claim their nine-tenths (one master, seeing the boat so close, had decided to risk running the bar, and afterwards claimed he’d only asked for pilotage). ‘But I put a stop to all of that, for it’s but a short step to wrecking.’

  Wakefield pulled up on the hard, and Peto was half out in an instant, grabbing a hand-hold for the roof.

  ‘Have a care!’ cried Hervey, hastening to help.

  But Peto was atop the chaise in no time, glass in hand, nimble as the cripple at Bethesda.

  ‘Can you see the distress?’ called Hervey (there was no safe space for two of them).

  ‘I see her tops … two – no, she’s beam-on: three masts! What the devil’s she doing putting in?’

  ‘Is she too big?’ shouted Hervey, for he’d seen the flag on the church tower.

  ‘The point is she’s big enough to stand out to sea,’ bellowed Peto. ‘She must’ve sprung a leak or some such.’ He began clambering down.

  ‘Shall we drive to the bank?’

  ‘Can’t – not with the tide in. Besides, there’s no use watching. If she’s in such trouble as to run for it and miss the bar they’ll need to take off crew and all and pretty quick. And if she’s as many passengers as she’s built for …’

  He beckoned furiously to the watching men on the harbour wall. ‘Come on, you landlubbers! Look lively!�
�

  ‘What do you intend?’ Hervey was still shouting, the wind relentless.

  ‘To get yonder boat into the water!’

  Hervey saw a tarpaulin thirty yards away, supposing it was the Lukin coble.

  The half-dozen men, two of them little more than boys, broke into a sort of double – as if they couldn’t help themselves, for all their quarrelsome independence.

  ‘Now, my good lads,’ began Peto, with a look that won as much as commanded, ‘we must get our old boat in the water and be ready to take off the crew and all from the new one, for they’ll have to make more than one rescue if yon barque’s sailing full-laden.’

  No one questioned his right to call on them – Hervey supposed they must know exactly who he was – but the sheer force of his command and assurance seemed effortlessly to propel them to the task. In no time at all the tarpaulin was unlashed and the rollers laid out.

  ‘Good men! Capital!’

  There were only a dozen yards to run to the water, but the boat was no seven-hundredweight, and even Hervey saw they wouldn’t shift it by their own muscle alone.

  Peto was ahead of him. ‘Corporal, will you lend your horsepower?’

  ‘Aye, sir!’

  They sprang into action like ostlers to a mail coach. Hervey helped unhitch the traces and run the two in tandem to the front of the coble. One of the ‘volunteers’ had got the hauling ropes ready, which Wakefield hitched to the wheeler’s collar, while Hervey struggled to steady the leader.

  ‘Now then, listen to me,’ rasped Wakefield to the volunteers, so uncharacteristically assertive that Hervey looked twice. ‘You pull on those ropes to take up the slack – right? And then I’ll lead these on to take the strain – right? And you’ll keep on the ropes till we’re in the water an’ I tells you to let go – right? And no noise. I don’t want them being started behind.’

  They all nodded eagerly. Had Wakefield been in uniform he couldn’t have made a greater impression.

  But who was to man the oars?

  Now it was Peto’s turn. ‘Hold hard for the moment, if you will, Corporal. Now, well done, lads, well done. Now, when we’re in the water, who’s coming with me?’

  Hervey winced. With him? Surely he didn’t intend …

  ‘Yes, my lads, I’ll be in yon boat. I’ve commanded many a one in my time – as well y’know. We needn’t go beyond the bar – safe water, just a bit of a pull against the wind. Now, who’s with me?’

  It seemed that most of them were. Whether because of the compelling power of Sir Laughton Peto’s celebrity and disposition, or the prospect of a share in the salvage, Hervey couldn’t suppose. It mattered not at that moment.

  ‘Capital! Now, as her bow begins to lift, all hands aboard!’ He turned to Wakefield. ‘Ready?’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  ‘Then haul away!’

  She moved easily – thank God – and the horses were no more shy of the water than the road. Wakefield and then Hervey pulled themselves astride as they splashed into the breakers.

  Ten yards, the beach gently shelving, water now up to the belly – and the bows lifting. In scrambled the coble’s scratch crew, ten of the liveliest – and Peto.

  ‘Haul me up, my lads! Let loose the ropes!’

  ‘Turn ’em about, Colonel!’ shouted Wakefield as the lines fell clear.

  Hervey brought the leader round clear of the traces, the wheeler following with Wakefield still up, and quietly, then edged alongside the coble until he could lunge aboard – with much cursing as he caught his knee on the gunwale.

  Wakefield was making to follow.

  ‘Get back, man! See to the horses!’

  But he took no notice, sliding into the boat on his stomach. ‘Sorry, Colonel. If Sar’nt Acton were with you I could.’

  Hervey gritted his teeth. He’d given an order – or thought he had – and Wakefield had ignored it. Yet how could he upbraid a man for claiming his duty lay with the harder course?

  ‘They’ll be right enough, Colonel. They’ll stand quiet.’

  But Hervey was already distracting himself with an oar, trying to slide it into the rowlock.

  ‘Now, see here,’ Peto hailed. ‘There are life-preservers in the sternsheets.’

  Landlubbers he may have called them, but more than one was looking handy. Out came the cork vests, and then, one by one, out went the oars.

  Once he’d got the likeliest of his lads to fit the rudder – ‘I appoint you bos’n!’ – he settled in the sternsheets and took charge of the pulling. ‘Give way together!’ and then ‘Pick up the stroke!’ and ‘Cheerly now!’

  Hervey shook his head and smiled to himself: truly his friend was in his element. They might be pulling for a man-o’-war rather than a Tyne barque.

  Yet Blakeney harbour was no little place, no mouth-of-the-river and breakwater affair, but a good mile and a half of shallow bay bounded by a line of sandbanks. ‘The Frisians in miniature’, Peto had called them. At low water much of it became salt marsh, gouged its full length wide and lazily by the Glaven stream, and marked at its western limit (for the purposes of pilotage) by the Stiffkey, which met with the Glaven at the harbour entrance; that entrance, at least, which was passable to more than a smack.

  The sea was nothing compared with what was running beyond the sandbank, but at its widest there was half a mile of water between bank and shore, and the swell was enough to persuade Peto to make straight into the wind for the sand’s lee, and then due west, hoping at the turn to have the wind in their favour.

  It was hard pulling, a good while before they could do aught but keep the stroke – and a quarter of an hour’s hard labour (Hervey threw off the cork vest and his coat, so heavy was the work) until they found the slacker water.

  Peto put the rudder to port. The coble answered west as handily as a jolly boat. ‘Pick up the stroke now!’

  And it was a deal easier, oars now entering the water cleanly rather than battering against the swell. And the wind had veered just a point too, so it helped them make headway rather than hindered.

  But it was a full twenty minutes still before they reached the harbour mouth, with the tide now on the ebb and a quickening current to work against the wind.

  ‘Keep the stroke!’

  The Blakeney Greathead, stationed at the furthest end of the sandbank, near the lookout, and so ready to put into open water in minutes, was already coming off the wreck with a full lading – a dozen of the barque’s passengers, some women and children.

  Peto stood up – heaven knew how, for Hervey didn’t – and began signalling with his arm. What intelligence, what orders, it conveyed was beyond his landsman-friend, but evidently not the coxswain of the Greathead, for Hervey saw the boat turning directly for them.

  ‘We’ll bring ours alongside and take off her trade,’ called Peto hoarsely, the wind now shrill rather than mere roar. ‘Blakeney men never turn back!’

  It made sense, for the Greathead was an altogether bigger boat, with more freeboard; if there were others to take off from the barque it were better she do it, for beyond the bar the sea was tall, the breakers pounding the dunes like a siege battery, and the swell so heavy as to lose her from sight in the troughs.

  Peto now brought the coble about to head into the stream, knowing that presently the current would be stronger than the wind, the tide running out fast, and ordered oars to pull just that bit lighter – just enough to hold her steady so the Greathead could come up on his starboard with the more sea room.

  And indeed they held her very steady for a good few minutes, while the Greathead rose and plunged towards the less lively water of the harbour mouth, and then running in fast.

  ‘Starboard side, boat oars!’

  It was lubberly, but it was done.

  ‘Steady now!’

  And then the Greathead was coming alongside, larboard oars boated and hands ready with ropes to lash the two together.

  ‘A dozen more to take off, Sir Laughton – crew mainly,’ boome
d the coxswain.

  The boats locked fore and aft.

  ‘Good man, Dauncey! Let’s get these across sharp.’

  Helping hands got the orphans of the storm into the coble, Peto and his bosun bidding them crouch low so as not to hinder the oars.

  Hervey was too preoccupied with the unfamiliar contents of his hands to take in much (an oar was a deal more refractory than the nappiest trooper’s reins) but the face of rescued humanity was compelling – innocents plucked from the watery jaws of death …

  But then he saw Peto on his feet once more (how, he couldn’t tell, for the motion of the boat was enough to upset the ablest-bodied), shouting orders, beckoning, pointing, just as he supposed at Navarino – master of men and the wooden world; magnificent! What privilege it was to call him friend …

  The Greathead heaved suddenly and slammed against the coble.

  Crack!

  The starboard oar closest the stern for some reason trailed, snapped above the blade. The loom swung round with the kick of a mule and pitched its handler into Peto, who fell sideways, grabbing for the gunwale but missing as the boat lunged on the swell and pulled the coble with it. Over the side he went – and all in a split second.

  Hervey was up in an instant, but Wakefield was first, diving without a thought or a glance. He went in after him, just ahead of one of the Blakeney men, leaping rather than diving, not trusting to his reach. His head went under, his heart seemed to stop; it was an age before he broke surface. And it was all he could do to stay there. There was nothing but the sea whichever way he looked – great walls of it. His boots were leaden.

  And then a cork vest washed over the swell, and he grabbed it, and it was now just a bit easier to keep his head above water … but still he couldn’t see the coble – nothing but the great grey walls. Where was Peto? Where was Wakefield? If he couldn’t see which way to strike, would he be taken by the tide? Had he passed out with the sudden immersion, been minutes asleep? Had he – had they – been taken, swept out, beyond the bar, beyond sight?

  The cold was already in his marrow. It was now assailing his head.

  Would the end come this way – with not a soul to see?