‘Indeed, sir?’
‘And it is you who will be in receipt of it.’
Pearce is dead, he thought. He knew the bastard had been sent into action on those pontoons, just as he suspected Hotham had a hand in engineering it. With him gone so many of the matters presently bearing down on him would be resolved.
‘You will not know that Captain Frost of Leander has asked to be relieved, due to ill health?’
There was a terrible temptation then to indulge in levity, and ask if Frost had been stung by some insect, given he spent his entire life collecting specimens, butterflies and bugs, often at the neglect of his duties.
‘No, sir.’
‘Then you will also not know that it is my intention to recommend to Lord Hood that you should replace him.’
‘Sir, I…’ Ralph Barclay could not speak; a 74-gun ship of the line. This was elevation indeed; in fact, he would be leapfrogging several officers with a better claim to the commission than he, men ahead of him on the captain’s list. There would be much gnashing of teeth when the news got out and, no doubt, written complaints.
‘Drink your wine, sir,’ Hotham exclaimed, ‘and let us toast your future. I will have your orders drawn up shortly and once Lord Hood has confirmed my choice, you may shift your dunnage.’
The glass was near to the Barclay lips as he asked, ‘You are sure he will agree, sir?’
‘I am.’
‘Then, sir, it is my duty not only to toast my good fortune, but to wish you joy of your continued employment of your flag.’
‘Have no worries on that score, Barclay,’ Hotham replied, his eyes narrowing. ‘I have enough support in London to deal with any threats to my position.’
Both glasses were drained, and refilled, with Ralph Barclay imagining himself in a cabin nearly as spacious as the one in which he was sitting. That brought on the worry of furnishing such an area, until he recalled that the port of Toulon was full of Provençal refugees, especially the wealthy citizens of Marseilles, who had been forced to run from the terror of the Revolution when General Carteaux and his ragtag Army had taken the city. They were now selling everything they possessed, furniture and paintings included, at knock-down prices, just to pay for the food they needed to keep them alive.
There was another thing to please him: for the first time in his life he could probably consider his credit to be sound. True, his prizes had not yet been bought in or valued and the amounts to be paid settled – that task still lay with his prize agents, Ommaney and Druce. How their tune would have changed from the start of the year when he had first got his frigate; the two sleek and overfed partners had treated him with short shrift when he tried to get them to advance him some credit. Now, should he turn up at their chambers in the Strand, they would fetch out the best claret and treat him with the consideration due to a man lining their greedy pockets.
Ralph Barclay checked himself then; he had allowed his mind to wander and Hotham’s next words brought him down with a bump.
‘There are, of course, other things to consider, Captain Barclay.’
‘Sir?’
‘I sent Lord Hood the papers on your court martial two weeks ago, but he is yet to confirm the findings.’ John Pearce’s name hung like Banquo’s ghost over the table, but Ralph Barclay was damned if he was going to be the one to mention it. As it turned out Hotham was equally reluctant, though; as he referred to him in the abstract, he did so in a low tone. ‘There is also a rumour that a certain party wishes to bring an action for perjury against you.’
Dying to ask if there had been any news of casualties in that day’s action, the word perjury passed Barclay by, until he realised that probably, if there had, Hotham would not yet know, which made stupid his previous euphoria at the thought of Pearce dead, so his reply was absent-minded.
‘I think that certain person would be better to attend to his duty, sir.’
‘I shall ensure that he does so, Captain Barclay, and I can assure you it will be warm, but now I wish you to put your mind to other matters. Given that what Admiral Gell attempted this morning has so spectacularly failed, what would you suggest we do about that damned battery?’
The thoughts he had been harbouring on deck floated into his mind, but given what had gone before he decided they should remain there. Needing to please this man, what followed was no more than a good, if educated, guess.
‘You have already alluded to it, sir. There is only one thing to do. It must be attacked and destroyed, but not by cannon fire.’ Hotham was nodding, creating a relieved Ralph Barclay, who knew he had guessed right, though the game had to be played out. ‘An assault with troops, in other words.’
‘Precisely. I take it, Captain Barclay, that in suggesting such a course you would give due consideration to the fact that in terms of losses it could be costly.’
‘I would, sir, but I would also give consideration to the cost of doing nothing. Fort Malbousquet is already suffering from bombardment, Mulgrave likewise. If this Buonaparte fellow you mentioned can advance another battery into a more forward position, and then be able to employ his 24-pounders on Malbousquet, matters could become critical. I know he risks losses of his own, and serious ones, but I have already alluded to his lack of concern for human life.’
‘I made the very point to Lord Hood when we discussed matters. He was reluctant to sanction such an assault.’
‘He may well reconsider now, sir.’
Another half a minute passed in silence before Hotham said, ‘Boats and marines, yes?’
‘At dawn, sir, with the sun coming from the east behind them, but supported by a land assault as well, perhaps from Fort Mulgrave.’
‘A night attack is a possibility. Whatever, it would require bold leadership, would it not, Barclay, and officers willing to risk all?’
A third glass of wine on the way to his mouth, Ralph Barclay again stopped, for it was obvious, though again no name was used, what Hotham was driving at. The image of John Pearce leading a charge across a cloying sandy beach was a pleasing one, but not as agreeable as the next vision he conjured up, of that same fellow drowning in a pool of his own blood.
‘An officer could decline the duty, sir.’
‘Oh I think not, Barclay, when we are dealing with a fellow much attached to certain people. I would suggest that as well as marines, the assault would require a body of tars to spike the guns. Some, for instance, may come from your present command, others from the seamen presently serving on HMS Faron.’
‘An excellent notion, sir, very wise, if I may say so.’
One of the virtues of dealing with Sir William Hotham was the fact that, given as he was to long silences, it was possible to think ahead of him, yet the notion Ralph Barclay was cogitating on now was not entirely cheerful. He was asking himself why Hotham was favouring him with HMS Leander, when he had other captains attached to his flag with as good a claim to his favour, in fact in at least three cases he knew of, a much better one.
It occurred to him that Pearce might be the reason. Lord Hood had not confirmed the decision of his court; was that a worry to the man who had set it up? It was Hotham who had sent away Pearce and his Pelicans as part of the escort for those revolutionary sailors, his secretaries who had taken the potentially damning depositions never introduced at the trial, while he had ensured the man appointed as prosecutor was not only incompetent, but one well disposed towards any captain accused of pressing seamen.
Hotham came out of his reverie and spoke. ‘First we must get Lord Hood to agree the necessity. I doubt he will cavil if I offer to oversee the action. Naturally, it will also be my duty to appoint the officers to both lead and execute it.’
Looking into that bland face and those watery blue eyes, Ralph Barclay experienced a sudden feeling of alarm. Was he setting him up, with this proposed promotion, to lead the attack? Now he was unsure if John Pearce was the only person Hotham wanted rid of. Had he had sight of the note Parker had sent over that morning, presently n
estling in Hotham’s coat pocket, he would have been even more concerned.
CHAPTER FOUR
The jolly boat came at the appointed hour to take Emily Barclay back to HMS Brilliant, her floating home, with, as usual, young Martin Dent talking the whole way across the anchorage. Looking into his bright eyes and open cheerful countenance, albeit with a crooked nose, she experienced a pang of jealousy for a lad, not much younger than she, who seemed to enjoy such a carefree existence; at one time she was of a like nature. Reprising events these last few months it seemed as though the world had closed in around her. How distant home life now seemed, how far off the days when her major worry was how to persuade her financially constrained parents of the absolute necessity of a visit to the dressmaker.
Perhaps her cares dated from the day it was made plain that her distant relation, Ralph Barclay, might make a suitable husband. That was something which could not have been mooted had he not mentioned the possibility to her father, who no doubt, in turn, consulted her mother. How subtly it had been done, the insinuation into the proposal the fact that the house in which they all lived was entailed to the Barclay family, and since the parent had passed on, the rather severe-looking naval captain now had the right to claim the place as part of his inheritance; in short, if enforced, the family would be homeless.
Matters were not pressed; she was, after all, a mere sixteen years old, but Ralph Barclay became a frequent visitor and on closer acquaintance his rather austere manner thawed. It was also made plain, and not only by her immediate family, that a naval captain, even one presently without a ship, was a decent catch for a girl with few prospects, given her parents’ dearth of means; while a husband of mature years was more likely to be and remain besotted, unlike callow youth, which was deemed capricious. Water wears away the hardest stone and Emily was, she now realised, far from granite in her reluctance. Time made what seemed mildly unpalatable possibly acceptable, until the point was reached where to turn down the actual proposal – an awkward moment for both parties – seemed to smack of ingratitude. From there matters had proceeded to the nuptials with seeming inevitability.
‘Ahoy, Mr Pearce!’ called Martin Dent, as a racing cutter, manned by many more oars, overhauled them.
Emily was lost in memory, and besides, facing forward, she had no idea in the busy part of the bay that they were being overtaken. For the second time in as many hours the name jolted her and she turned to see the named individual sat in the same place as she, by the stern.
‘Ahoy, Martin!’ Pearce called back. ‘How’s my favourite rogue?’
‘You been in the wars, Mr Pearce, you looks like a blackamoor.’
Emily saw more than one face pinch at the way Martin was addressing John Pearce, who might have at one time been a lower-deck shipmate, but was now a man of rank. Yet she only had to look at Martin to see in his eyes a sort of happy hero worship, which again induced a burst of memory, this time truly unpleasant. It was Martin Dent’s blathering, in this very boat, which had first alerted her to certain discrepancies in the stories she had been told both by her husband and her nephew. Abreast and passing, Pearce raised his hat, to show a clean white forehead and a healthy head of hair. She, in turn, was obliged to nod in response.
‘I wish he was back aboard Brilliant, Mrs Barclay, don’t you?’
‘Belay that, you stupid little bugger,’ a quiet voice growled from behind his back, which startled Emily; she had never wondered what the crew of her husband’s ship knew of things. Now she was forced to consider they might be aware of more than was comfortable.
Approaching the frigate she was struck at how obvious still, new paint notwithstanding, were those parts of the upperworks so recently repaired, for the ship had suffered severely in the action that saw her brought in as a French prize. Lord Hood had ordered her to be kept where she lay, in the inner harbour, within easy range of the town quays, the arsenal and those buildings that operated as the headquarters of the French Admiralty. Should matters go awry, HMS Brilliant was in a good position, with her upper-deck guns, to subdue any hint of backsliding by the French Navy, or trouble from the Toulonnais.
Emily was put ashore on the quay, with only a short walk to the gangplank that led up to the maindeck, but that provided enough time for Midshipman Toby Burns to make himself scarce; he had no desire to come face to face with his aunt, who would, if she bothered to grace him with a word at all, want to berate him for his conduct at the recent court martial. Standing on the poop by the taffrail, looking determinedly astern, he was, not for the first time in his life, indulging in a bout of self-pity.
Toby Burns, as all young boys do, had dreamt of a life afloat – of exciting adventures and heroism – only to find the reality so different as to make him hate the whole notion. Capricious superiors were bad enough, worse still were his fellow midshipmen, horrible, thieving and given to salacious promises that scared him witless. The ordinary tars he was in fear of, ruffians to a man in his way of thinking, and always looking for ways to undermine what little authority he possessed.
‘Mr Burns, you are absent from your place of duty.’
‘Sorry, Mr Glaister,’ Burns cried, hurrying back to the quarterdeck, saluting the Premier with a raised hat, but taking care to avoid the glare emanating from the first lieutenant’s icy blue eyes. These were set in a bony face seemingly devoid of spare flesh, the forehead prominent. The voice, too, was harsh, not in the least softened by the man’s Highland lilt. ‘An anchor watch is yet a watch, Mr Burns.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
‘Then attend to it properly.’
With the captain mainly away at Fort Malbousquet, Glaister was in charge of the ship, and since Ralph Barclay had taken with him a goodly proportion of the crew, the other mids and officers, it fell to Toby Burns to do much of this sort of duty, which consisted of no more than the appearance of some authority on the ship’s deck. It was boring in the extreme, for little of interest happened once he had got tired of watching the distant fall of shot in the endless artillery duels taking place around the bay. Those men still aboard tended to stay below when not required, a body coming up occasionally to ring the ship’s bell on the hour, before turning over the sandglass.
Dull it might be, but Toby Burns was content with the duty; better that than to be under the basilisk eye of his uncle by marriage, as well as the cannon fire he would be exposed to. Even after he had lied for him in the most outrageous way, Ralph Barclay had shown little appreciation, not it seemed in the least aware that in doing so the boy had forfeited the regard of his Aunt Emily, the only person aboard who had treated him with kindness since the day he joined this ship.
Entering the main cabin, Emily was annoyed to see the clerk, Cornelius Gherson, sitting at her husband’s table, a place which had been expressly forbidden him on her request. Immediately he stood and began to gather his papers, favouring her, as he always did, with a condescending smile that made her flesh creep.
‘Forgive me, Mrs Barclay, I did not expect you back so soon.’
‘Then you have lost your sense of time, sir, for I generally return at around this hour.’
The smile remained, seeming, if anything, more patronising. ‘Then I plead the interests of your husband as excuse, ma’am.’
‘Where is Shenton?’ she demanded.
Gherson seemed mildly surprised by the question, but his answer was pat. ‘At the markets, Mrs Barclay.’
‘At this hour?’
‘It is when the best bargains are to be had. Traders generally lower the prices when they wish to shift their wares instead of taking them home.’
She wanted to point out that what would be left, in a town under siege, would hardly be worth having, and she also suspected there was more to the steward’s absence. If there was she could neither ask nor demand to be told; Gherson worked for her husband, not her.
He was by the door when he said, ‘If I may say so, Mrs Barclay, I wonder if you are doing too much. You look fatigued.’
‘I am perfectly well, Gherson.’
‘Thanks, no doubt, to a robust constitution.’
He was gone before she could snap at him, and that was just as well; the atmosphere in the cabin was generally cold enough without her making it more so. Suddenly Gherson was there again, holding a folded letter.
‘I forgot, Mrs Barclay, this note came from Admiral Parker.’
‘Parker?’ she replied, flustered.
‘Yes. The messenger made sure I understood it was to be given to you personally.’
Emily looked at the seal as soon as it was in her hand, then at him, and there was on his face a smile of a different kind, which brought to her mind the word ‘smug’. The soft whistling sound that came from beyond the cabin door as he shut it behind him did nothing to reassure her, and she looked at the seal with close attention until she was satisfied it was intact.
In the cramped, tiny cabin in which he was supposed to work, Cornelius Gherson fingered the palette knife with which, once heated over tallow, he had opened that note. He had not imparted the other bit of the messenger’s information, and he had been made immensely curious after hearing that the admiral had penned the note in his own hand, which implied a deep secret.
Opening letters not addressed to him had been a skill early acquired; Cornelius Gherson had always felt from his first days in service the need to know what was going on in the life of his employer and Ralph Barclay was no different. That it had got him tossed off London Bridge by one fellow for whom he had worked, who took great exception to being both cuckolded and robbed, to end up pressed as a seaman, did nothing to dent old habits, for that memory was buried under the thick carapace of his narcissism.
How could he use what he had read? Would it be better to tell the captain of his wife’s betrayal, or could he use it on her? He had harboured a desire to seduce Emily Barclay on first sight, and had tried charming her – she was after all a beautiful woman married to a much older man, a dour bugger – while he was acknowledged by all to be a handsome fellow who had enjoyed great success with the ladies. He was still smarting from the callous way he had been rebuffed, so much so that his abiding thought was retribution. Yet the idea of bedding her had not died; could he gain the same end by a little judicious blackmail? Who knew how far she might go to keep such a thing secret?
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