Peto felt himself thoroughly chastened, but by no means abashed. ‘I could send her to you in my launch, Sir Edward. Midshipman Codrington might escort her.’
The admiral now looked faintly indignant. ‘My dear Captain Peto, I cannot disrupt a ship of war at such a time. And I have Admiral de Rigny to attend to.’
Peto saw perfectly well that having to deal with a French admiral was vexation enough without the distraction of petticoats. He concluded that he could not press his commander-in-chief further on the matter. Rebecca would, after all, be seeing her brother. ‘Then I must beg pardon, Sir Edward.’
‘There is no cause to do so, I assure you, Sir Laughton. My daughter is well, I trust?’
Peto smiled a shade wryly. ‘She is very well indeed, Sir Edward. I believe she was almost glad to be blown south of Malta, for she expresses a great desire to see your squadron.’
The admiral nodded. ‘She has spirit, but I am afraid I am unable to oblige her in that too, for I must have Rupert stand out well to the west. I do not wish the Turks see her before it is opportune. I shall explain my purpose tomorrow when the other captains are assembled.’
Peto noted for the first time a certain heaviness in the admiral’s manner of expression. It could not have been anxiety for the outcome of any exchange of fire (there could be no doubt of the superiority of the Royal Navy’s gunnery, nor indeed that of the French and the Russians, compared with the Turks and Egyptians), and he was therefore inclined to ascribe it to the uncertainty of the undertaking as a whole. From what he had learned before he sailed, Codrington’s instructions were damnably equivocal.
‘By your leave, then, Sir Edward, I will call on my old friend your flag captain and then rejoin my ship.’
They had no conversation in the launch. Peto wrapped his boatcloak round himself against the freshening westerly as hands pulled for the Rupert. He had much to think on. He was already turning over in his mind what more could be done to put Rupert into best trim for Codrington’s ‘fierce exchange of shot’.
His old friend Captain Edward Curzon, from his closeness to the flag, had been able to tell him a good deal of what had occupied the admiral these past months. The instructions which came from London out of the embassy at Constantinople held that the Ottoman Porte would give up its claim to Greece simply because His Britannic Majesty, and the King of France, and the Tsar of All the Russias required it. Yet His Majesty’s ministers would give no unequivocal expression of what should be the course if peaceful persuasion failed. His de facto deputy, de Rigny, Codrington found less than straightforward (could he ever trust the French? – there were even French advisors with the Turkish fleet); and Count Heiden – commanding the Russian squadron – was thoroughly spoiling for a fight, for the Tsar’s own wish was to see the Turkish navy crippled.
Peto shook his head, and turned instead to observe the other midshipman in the launch. Henry Codrington was a fine-looking youth, not yet twenty, but not long for lieutenant, he supposed. What pride must the admiral have in such a son – and such a daughter indeed. He thought again of Elizabeth, and wondered . . .
The launch ran silent indeed through the heavy swell, not a word from hands or officer, conscious that the captain thought deeply on some matter.
In ten more minutes the boatswain’s pipes twittered, and then it was the return scramble to the entry port.
‘Convey Mr Codrington to the flag apartment, Mr Sandys,’ said Peto to the lieutenant who greeted him at the top.
‘Ay-ay, sir.’
‘And have my launch ready to convey him back to the Asia in one hour, if you please.’
‘Ay-ay, sir.’
Peto turned. ‘Mr Codrington, be so good as to tea with me in half of one hour, along with your sister.’
‘Honoured, sir.’
But Peto did not hear, for he was already taking the companion ladder two steps at a time.
‘Mr Lambe!’ he rasped as he came on to the quarterdeck.
The first lieutenant came up from the waist directly, and with satisfaction in his expression.
‘Evidently you have something agreeable to report, Mr Lambe. Wear away, sir!’
‘I have had the upper battery tackle greased again, sir. It gives us five seconds at least.’
Peto nodded approvingly.
‘Very well, Mr Lambe: dry gun drills immediately after breakfast, and then divine worship.’
Lambe looked nonplussed. ‘Church, sir? But tomorrow is Friday.’
‘I am perfectly aware what shall be the day, Mr Lambe, but we have not held divine worship since leaving Gibraltar.’ Their lordships were by no means as insistent on Sunday worship as they had been during the late war, and Peto himself had not much affection for parsons afloat, despite his filial loyalty to the profession, but they were all a mite closer to meeting their Creator, now, and on the sabbath next there might be preparations . . . or obsequies. ‘A man ought to be able to listen to Scripture and say a few prayers once in a while; and wind and weather have so far conspired to prevent him.’
Lambe understood right enough. ‘Ay-ay, sir,’ he said, resolutely.
‘Have the master-at-arms slaughter the beef. The goats he may spare.’
‘Ay-ay, sir.’
‘And join me, if you will, for dinner, with such others as you judge favourable. It will be the last occasion for Miss Codrington to dine with us. Firefly will take her off tomorrow – along with the rest of the women. Though her master doesn’t yet know it,’ he added drily.
Lambe touched his hat before returning to the waist to see the batteries secure. Peto cast an eye aloft. He had left Rupert hove to with just the fore-topsail to the mast, but with a freshening westerly, Lambe had partially struck the fore and brought her a point into the wind. In a couple of hours or so, when the launch was come back from conveying young Codrington to the Asia, he would have the new watch make sail so that he could take station to windward, as the admiral wished. He went to his cabin.
‘Tea, if you please, Flowerdew; in half an hour, for Miss Codrington and her brother.’
‘Oh, tea is it,’ muttered his steward, fancying that life on a line-of-battle ship was becoming a drawing room affair.
‘Mr Codrington is midshipman on the Asia.’
‘Oh, is ’e indeed. A right fam’ly going it is.’
‘But the admiral will keep his flag in Asia for the time being.’
Flowerdew said nothing, though he was pleased, since an admiral’s retinue was bound to be vexing. He began taking out a silver service from one of the lockers under the stern lights.
‘And the simnel cake – I think we will have that too.’
‘Oh, cake is it. Quite the tea party.’
Peto was unabashed. He would delight unashamedly in the company of sibling affection. He would observe in it, indeed, something of his own future.
* * *
Peto heard the knock. He looked at his watch: the timing was exact enough to serve for dead reckoning. He nodded approvingly as Flowerdew opened the steerage door to admit Midshipman Henry and Miss Rebecca Codrington. The brother, hat under his left arm, bowed; Rebecca curtsied. Peto returned their salutes and bid them sit, feeling suddenly awkward, which displeased him, for he was a post-captain and plenty old enough to be Miss Codrington’s father.
Flowerdew came to his aid: did Miss Codrington take milk with her tea (the answer he surely knew, for he had served it to her on several occasions)?
She smiled – which Flowerdew had the greatest difficulty in not reflecting – and said that she would.
‘My brother tells me that his ship is not so large as this, Captain Peto.’
Rebecca’s brother coloured, rather. He himself would never have initiated conversation with a post-captain, and especially not with any comparison of ships, no matter how favourable to the hearer.
Peto saw. ‘But the Asia is perfectly matched for any fight, Miss Rebecca. You may have no fears on that account.’
‘Oh, I had no fe
ars, Captain Peto. It is just that I had thought my father would come aboard your ship, as you suggested he would.’
‘He will know his flag captain well by now. Curzon’s an excellent fellow. I have known him long.’
‘My brother says it is because my father intends entering the place where the Turkish fleet is anchored and compelling them to leave, and he does not wish the Rupert to enter.’
‘Is that so, indeed?’ Peto turned to Henry Codrington with the sort of enquiring look that would have made the stoutest midshipman wish he were at the maintop in a howling gale.
‘I . . . That is what I have heard, sir.’
Peto had heard it too. He had deduced as much when the admiral told him he wished for Rupert to stand well to the west until the time was right. But he would not let Mr Codrington off the hook so easily. ‘Indeed, sir? And what else might you have heard?’
Rebecca did not quite see the game. She looked at her brother enthusiastically. ‘Tell Captain Peto about Lord Nelson, Henry!’
Peto turned again to the young Codrington with an air of bemusement, perfectly studied. ‘Lord Nelson, Mr Codrington?’
Midshipman Codrington turned a deeper red. He swallowed hard. ‘Sir, I have heard that my fa—the admiral intends entering the bay at Navarin on the eve of Lord Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar.’
‘Indeed?’ Peto suppressed the urge to speculate aloud what effect such a celebratory manoeuvre would have on Admiral de Rigny and his French squadron. ‘It is only a pity that August is past.’
‘Sir?’
‘The first of August, Mr Codrington – a bay, the enemy at anchor . . .’
‘Oh, indeed, sir: Aboukir, the Nile.’
‘Quite, Mr Codrington, the Nile.’
Rebecca looked to her brother for edification.
‘Go on, Mr Codrington. Explain.’
‘The French fleet lay in line at anchor in Aboukir Bay, the mouth of the Nile, and Lord Nelson took his ships into the bay and sailed between the French and the shore, which the French had supposed was not possible, believing it to be too shallow, because of which they had not their guns run out on that side, nor even the gun-ports open. It was a famous victory.’ He looked at Peto for approval of his summary.
‘Admirable, Mr Codrington.’ He turned to Rebecca again. ‘But unlike Aboukir Bay, at the bay of Navarin – your father, I note, prefers the style to “Navarino” – there will be no imperative to destroy any one of the Sultan’s ships, only to compel them to leave. No admiral confronted by so great a show of force as your father may dispose, with the French and Russian squadrons, could do other than comply at once, for resistance would be as futile as it would be ruinous.’ He did not add, however, that the pride of the Turkish admiral was not to be underestimated. He looked at Flowerdew. ‘The cake?’
Flowerdew advanced with his tray.
Peto saw that his steward had not been able to remove quite all of the mould, which seemed always to defy his best efforts, but Midshipman Codrington was too experienced a seaman to notice, and his sister too polite. Peto himself took a hearty mouthful (he had not eaten since breakfast).
‘Do I have to leave on the Firefly tomorrow, Captain Peto?’ asked Rebecca, sounding suddenly rather younger than before. ‘I should so like to see our fleet sail into the bay, and the Turkish ships sailing away.’
Peto had taken rather too hearty a mouthful: the request induced a sudden, and somewhat messy, fit of coughing. ‘Miss Rebecca, greatly though I – we all – have prized your company these past weeks, I have to tell you that nothing would induce me to prolong that pleasure into a place of active operations. The Firefly, though I do not know her, will convey you with considerable speed to Malta.’ He spoke decidedly but kindly. ‘Is that not so, Mr Codrington?’ he added, turning to her brother for assurance, as if his was an opinion of equal rank.
Midshipman Codrington cleared his throat in turn. ‘Yes, sir; yes indeed.’ He turned to his sister. ‘The Firefly is a ship-sloop. She is a very good sailer, and Mr Hanson is a very able and gentlemanlike master.’
Peto now smiled, and with some wryness. ‘Your quarters, I’m afraid, will be a little more cramped than you have been used to of late. And you shall have to put up with the babbling of the . . . wives, that I am also obliged to put off.’
Rebecca brightened. ‘Oh, I have no concern for my comfort, Captain Peto. And I shall be only too glad to make closer acquaintance with the sailors’ wives.’
Peto now felt himself turning a little red under what he supposed might be the scrutiny of a brother who knew perfectly well the status of the women below deck, and who must therefore have some instinct to shelter a sister from such coarseness. ‘Yes . . . quite . . . Now, when you go aboard Firefly, Miss Rebecca, I would have you take letters for me, if you will.’
‘Yes, of course, Captain Peto. For Miss Hervey, I imagine?’
Peto felt his face now thoroughly reddening. The enquiry was entirely innocent, for all that it might have been precocious. He cleared his throat noisily. ‘Letters to the Admiralty . . . And yes, to . . . Miss Hervey.’
XVI
CLEAR FOR ACTION
Late afternoon the following day, 19 October 1827,
off Navarino Bay
Captain Sir Laughton Peto, second-senior post-captain of the British squadron in the Ionian, clambered up the ladder to Rupert’s entry port for the second time in twenty-four hours. The pipes trilled, the marine sentry presented arms, and the boatswain barked ‘off hats’ as the master of their wooden world, at once weary and yet animated, came inboard, touching his hat to the quarterdeck and nodding his acknowledgement to the first lieutenant’s salute.
‘Assemble all sea and warrant officers in the admiral’s steerage in one half of one hour, Mr Lambe, if you please.’
Lambe walked with him as Peto made for the companion ladder. ‘Miss Codrington shall have to wait in your cabin, then, sir. There has been no sign of Firefly.’
Peto broke his step momentarily. ‘Damnation!’
‘I’ve sent word to the flagship.’
Peto huffed.
‘Perhaps we shall have to put the ladies in the boats, sir, instead of the hen coops.’
It was a gallant attempt at humour in the circumstances. Peto turned, to see his lieutenant’s ironic half smile. ‘I would that I were not made to choose, Mr Lambe.’
‘Ay-ay, sir!’
At a quarter to six, Peto entered the admiral’s apartments. ‘Good evening, sir,’ chorused the assembled officers. He returned the courtesy heartily and with a smile. His signal midshipman unrolled a chart on the dining table and weighted down its corners with pieces of lead.
‘Gentlemen,’ began Rupert’s captain, with just the merest expression of drollery, ‘a good many of you – perhaps the majority – saw action in the late, “never-ending” war. Well, I tell you, we are about to undertake a smokeless action in what our fellow-countrymen touchingly believe is never-ending peace.’
There was a buzz among the officers – a puzzled applause, as well as lively. How might an action be smokeless? Between two ships, with surprise on one side, perhaps; but between fleets?
‘Gentlemen, your disbelief does you credit. The pertinent word, however, is “undertake”. I am myself convinced that an action such as this is bound to precipitate a fight; and I believe that that too is the admiral’s opinion, at heart. I wish you therefore to hear the design for tomorrow’s endeavour with that possibility – nay, let us not mince our words, probability – firmly in mind. For only thus shall you perceive the part which Rupert plays in it. Otherwise we might appear to be mere spectators at a fleet review.’
Faces spoke of enthusiasm.
He pointed to the chart. ‘Now, see the set of the coast, and the bay of Navarino . . .’
For a full five minutes Peto spoke the language of the sea, so that a midshipman of the most elementary schooling might consider himself able to assume the position of sailing-master – or even pilot. ‘You wil
l thus appreciate, gentlemen, why with such prevailing winds the admiral concludes it would be nigh impossible to maintain a blockade through the coming season.’
Heads nodded. It was long years since the Royal Navy had practised blockade, especially winter blockade – storm-tossed ships, ever watchful. Nor, indeed, would blockade prevent a Turkish army from marauding in the Morea itself.
‘The admiral has therefore concluded, in concert with the French and Russian commanders-in-chief, that the combined squadrons shall enter the bay of Navarino tomorrow – la mèche à la main, so to speak – and dispose themselves in such a way as to make clear to the Turkish admiral that he must at once comply with the terms of the ceasefire, and sail his ships to whence they came, Constantinople or Alexandria.’
There was general approbation. Peto nodded to his signal midshipman, who then unrolled another chart, on which was drawn large in charcoal the bay and the dispositions of the Ottoman fleet.
‘Gentlemen, you perceive that the admiral’s intelligence is most particular.’
They did indeed, for the dispositions were in the greatest detail: every man-of-war by name.
‘The Ottoman fleet consists in all of three ships of the Line, each of seventy-four guns, some twenty frigates, thirty or so corvettes, half a dozen brigs or sloops and five fireships. They are arranged in what might be called a horseshoe in the space enclosed by the citadel, the small island, and Sphacteria – which on some charts is rendered “Sphagia”.’ He indicated each with his finger. ‘In the front line, at a distance of about two cables apart, they have moored their battle-ships and most powerful frigates. In the second line, covering the intervals of the first line, they have placed the rest of the frigates and the most powerful corvettes, these latter being reinforced by a third line of corvettes. There are fireships placed at the two ends of the arc – two of them on the side of New Navarin, and three under the island of Sphacteria, protected by its battery.’
There was much nodding of heads. The Ottoman fleet did not possess so many ships of the Line as the French at the Nile, but the dispositions here were altogether stronger.
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