The Admirals' Game

by David Donachie

  ‘Citizens,’ he shouted, ‘these villains come to us under a white flag to induce treachery in the loyal sons of France. What would they do to one of us if we tried such a thing? In England they would hang us, but this is France, the land of liberty. We shall not soil our hands with their blood, but do no more than send them packing to their ship, to tell their milords that one day they will pay the same price as the bloodsuckers of France. Their heads will be on poles for their citizens to spit on. This pair? I suggest you spit on them while their heads are still on their shoulders.’

  It was almost comical the way Barras turned his back on the crowd, smiled at them and said in a courteous voice, necessarily loud because of the cacophony behind him, ‘Messieurs, I bid you good day.’

  The crowd, once they were off the dais, took Barras at his word, and great gobs of spit were aimed in their direction. There were rotten vegetables too, as well as fruit too soft to eat, which burst open on their coats. When they were near the harbour it was the innards of gutted fish with which they were assailed, stinking remnants which had been out in the sun and always there was the baying of the mob. Covered in filth and expectoration they made the quay, where the boat which had sat off waiting for them came in, itself under a hail of the same things which now coated their officers.

  Digby and Pearce bundled themselves into the boat with no elegance at all, and it was pushed off without instruction, the oarsmen straining to get clear of the mass of flying objects, which now included the odd stone.

  ‘Michael,’ Pearce shouted, ‘have you still got those cutlasses?’

  ‘I have, John-boy,’ he replied, in the situation quite forgetting the respect due to his friend.

  ‘Then turn this boat around. I want to see what those bastards on shore are like when faced with a bit of steel.’

  ‘Belay that, Mr Pearce,’ Digby shouted. ‘Let us settle for being in one piece.’

  ‘I wish I had a musket.’

  ‘So do I, but we do not possess such a thing.’ Then Digby looked above him at the white flag and his temper, which he had held admirably, finally cracked. ‘Get that damned thing down.’

  It was a sorry pair who made it back to HMS Faron, and it took a lot of time and effort to clean up both their own beings and their best uniforms, but in time the anger subsided, until they could be told what had been said by the crew who had witnessed the occurrences on the quayside and the bombardment of the cutter.

  ‘Now that is right kindly,’ Old Latimer had said. ‘You can’t say wrong about a blue coat that goes to all the trouble of fetching back a fresh meal for us lads on their own backs. I say we are right lucky to have officers of that hue.’

  The joke went round and round the deck, to be laughed at again and again, as HMS Faron upped anchor and set a course for the return to Toulon.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Ralph and Emily Barclay, with Midshipman Toby Burns in tow, arrived aboard HMS Britannia just as Digby and John Pearce were seeing the last of the Bay of Villefranche on a wind which favoured a swift return to Toulon. While the captain of the flagship entertained the guests, prior to the announcement of dinner being served, Ralph Barclay was asked to attend a private interview with the admiral, one which turned his already troubled mood – he was worried about the potential consequences of his wife’s behaviour – into one of deep fury as he heard of Hood’s decision.

  ‘You may take it as read, Barclay, that I will protest to the Admiralty in the most stringent terms. Hood has overstepped the mark.’

  Seething, the recipient of such a deep disappointment was nevertheless obliged to adopt a bland expression, as though being denied that which he so ardently sought had little effect on his being.

  ‘Then I can only thank you, sir, for your good offices.’

  ‘It shall come to pass, Barclay. I will not let the matter rest until it is resolved.’

  Why did Ralph Barclay not believe him? Was it the lack of passion in the protestation? Yet Hotham was a man given to little in the way of fervour at the best of times, so it could be a mistake to doubt him. What could not be gainsaid was the absolute need to stay within the orbit of his influence, even if it now seemed diminished. If Hood was prepared to ride roughshod over his second-in-command in such a matter, it said a great deal about how he felt about him, the man who had actually lost out.

  ‘One thing I thought I might do to sweeten the pill,’ Hotham said, ‘that is, until matters can be sorted to our mutual satisfaction, is to take your wife’s nephew into the flagship. How would that suit?’

  Ralph Barclay again had to hope his reply came out in the manner necessary; in reality he could not give a damn. ‘I’m sure the boy would be extremely flattered, sir.’

  ‘And I’m sure your wife will be grateful too. He is, after all, her nephew.’

  Looking at the wet lips of Hotham’s smile, Ralph Barclay had to bite his tongue. Was the man proposing to dally with his wife? He was not so stupid as to be unaware that tongues would wag regarding their relationship. Fleets were like that; boats going to and fro endlessly from ship to ship, and just as endlessly, through the lower-deck gun ports, passing on gossip. There would be many who thought his decision to bring his wife to sea – in fact, though often ignored, forbidden by the regulations – as a mistake waiting to happen. Shipboard life was a world apart, with its own rules and cruelties, and it took an exceptional sort of woman, certainly among those with any refinement, to accept what went on aboard.

  ‘Time, I think, to find out,’ Hotham added, before turning to a steward. ‘Please ask our guests to assemble for dinner.’

  Having had a quick word with General O’Hara, Hotham moved over to where the Barclays stood. The effusive way in which he greeted Emily did nothing to allay her husband’s suspicions, and his statement, delivered in an oily tone, that ‘Captain Barclay has some good news for you’, nearly got the admiral a blow that would have finished the provider’s career. But that was offset by the way Emily responded, by clasping his arm before replying.

  ‘Then I cannot wait to hear it, sir.’ She then, even more surprisingly, looked up at him with open admiration.

  ‘Sir William has asked that Toby be allowed to serve in the flagship.’

  ‘Let us fetch the boy,’ Hotham cooed, ‘and see how he takes to the notion.’

  Fetched out of a throng of junior redcoats waiting to enter the great cabin, Toby Burns was brought forward to hear the good news. He found it impossible to hide the fact that the idea confused him, and his reply, when it finally came, was an unintelligible stammer. He looked to his Uncle Ralph for some idea of what to do next, only to be further perplexed by the look on that face.

  His present captain was thinking ‘good riddance’. The boy was a pest, shy of anything approaching risk, who had been something of a burden since first coming aboard HMS Brilliant. What seemed like a good idea, taking a relative of his wife on board, had soon proved to be an error, given that she had seemed to have a soft spot for the lad, and with her lack of knowledge of the ways of the Navy, it had troubled Ralph Barclay to know how to deal with him. Had he been capable and zealous, even the kind of youngster who got into trouble for skylarking in the rigging, it would have presented no problem. It was the fact that he was none of those things that caused the difficulties.

  ‘Toby,’ Emily said in a spirited tone, ‘you must thank your Uncle Ralph. I am sure he is the one who persuaded Sir William to this.’

  ‘Uncle,’ Toby responded.

  Emily kept going in the same tone of voice. ‘But of course, Sir William, we will be sad to lose him, Toby being such an addition to the life of the ship with his lively behaviour.’

  She’s glad to be shot of the little bugger too, thought Ralph Barclay.

  ‘You will need to be a sober fellow aboard Britannia, lad,’ Hotham replied, ‘though there is the compensation, with two dozen of your ilk, of much companionship. Now I think, if you will excuse me, I must show some consideration to my other guests.’<
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  As soon as he was out of earshot, Toby Burns whispered to his uncle and aunt. ‘I would really rather stay aboard Brilliant.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Emily, her eyes suddenly like gimlets. ‘And it would be gross bad manners to show anything other than deep gratitude.’

  ‘Quite!’ Ralph Barclay added, with a look that equally brooked no further argument.

  ‘Now, husband,’ Emily continued gaily, ‘I think, before we take our places, I must introduce you to some of the officers I met upstairs.’

  Redcoats all, they had newly arrived from Gibraltar, a contingent that in their number were more of a token than a true reinforcement. Apart from General O’Hara himself, appointed as military commissioner by London, one stood out. Major Lipton was singular because of his need to shake with his left hand instead of his right; this he explained, just after he had made the introduction of his rather over-perfumed wife, by saying he had taken a bullet in the shoulder in a duel.

  ‘You do not fear authority then, sir?’

  ‘I know the king has forbidden it for serving officers, Captain Barclay, but some insults are so grave as to leave a man of honour no option but to call the miscreant out.’

  Emily had to bite her tongue then; she had good grounds to believe a challenge had been issued to her husband by John Pearce, one that had so far been declined. Called to the table they took their places, Emily as one of the three females close to the admiral and his guest of honour, the general, who was obliged to explain to his host why, with all the officers present, in terms of soldiery, they had only brought with them half the numbers requested.

  ‘They are quality, sir,’ the general insisted, ‘and the government would have sent more, but the Governor of Gib was adamant. The Spanish alliance cannot be said to be a happy one…’

  ‘Indeed,’ Hotham responded, for once, with no Spaniards present, able to be open in his condemnation. ‘Given we have been at war with the Dons since the time of Good Queen Bess, it is strange to see them here at all, never mind supporting our efforts.’ Hotham dropped his voice then, forcing everyone not close to lean forward in an attempt to hear what he said. ‘Though I have to say, General O’Hara, and it is sad to say you will find this out, their troops are of such low worth that I think of them as an encumbrance rather than an ally.’

  ‘I doubt, sir,’ O’Hara replied, in the same low but carrying tone, ‘that their fleet is any better.’

  ‘Grubby decks are always a bad sign and you would be troubled to find worse than a Spaniard. Their hands are lazy, the officers indifferent and their command poor. God, I wish we were fighting them and not the French.’

  It was telling that words which should have shocked those assembled passed without comment or even a frown. Disliking the Dons was ingrained in the personality of both the Navy and the British Army.

  Toby Burns was not even attempting to follow that exchange; he was eating his dinner, but he was doing so in a manner which could only be described as despondent. Being a lowly mid, he was not anyone that others felt obliged to constantly include in their conversation, which left him for most of the meal to his own thoughts, and that was all about the travails he would suffer sharing a berth with over twenty others of the same rank. He was certain, before he even met those who were to be his new companions, that he would not get on with most of them. Ages would vary greatly; he had heard of midshipmen in their forties and regardless of maturity there would be bullies for certain, and no doubt a senior in the berth who would treat him as badly as he had been treated at school, used as an unpaid servant and dogsbody.

  Added to that, like an albatross round his young neck, was his reputation. Lifting his head to glance around the table, he fixed his look, in turn, on the two people present who knew his heroic stature to be false, his aunt and uncle. On the frigate he guessed, though no one ever told him to his face, that the crew also knew the truth. Marooned ashore on the Brittany coast with a party of seamen, and he the only one with even a pretension to the status of officer, he had not behaved well, yet his uncle had chosen to laud him as the person who had saved a difficult situation. Then he had sent him back to England aboard a prize ship with a dispatch naming him as the fellow responsible for the capture.

  Ralph Barclay had done it to slight John Pearce, of course, and in cogitating on that name a bolt of real fear shot through his body. There was a man that owed him for what he perceived as treachery in allowing him and his friends to be pressed a second time. Yet he had only been obeying an instruction from his uncle; how could he, a mere boy, fly in the face of any command from such a source? Just as vividly he could remember the shock of seeing the same John Pearce in a lieutenant’s blue coat on the deck of Victory, the ship that fetched him back to join his frigate, a reluctant sailor once more.

  ‘Damn you, John Pearce,’ he said out loud.

  The ensign sat next to him, who had, up till now, practically ignored his presence, demanded, ‘Who did you say?’

  ‘Sorry, I was thinking aloud.’

  ‘The name was…?’

  ‘No one you would know, sir, a fellow called John Pearce serving with the fleet.’

  ‘Here in Toulon?’ Burns nodded. ‘A lieutenant in your service?’

  ‘You do know him?’

  ‘I know of him, and so does that major over yonder on the top table.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Never mind, lad, but I will tell you to expect some fireworks when Major Lipton finds he is on this station. My superior owes him a hole in the belly and once that shoulder of his is well enough to be used, I daresay he will serve it.’

  ‘He means to kill him?’ Toby asked, his spirits lifting.

  ‘Good God, no, he does not want to swing for him, but I daresay a bit of maiming would be on the cards.’

  Emily Barclay played the part of the dutiful wife to perfection. She accepted the flattery that came her way as a young beauty, but had all the expressions required to let those applying such gambits know when they risked straying too far. Given the accomplished manner in which she mounted her defence, added to the way she continually looked to her husband, as if reassuring him of her fidelity, Sir William Hotham was left wondering if the rumours he had heard, of a deep marital division in the Barclay coupling, were a myth.

  The dinner proceeded to the point where the cloth was drawn and the decanter brought forth, this just after the ladies, Emily and two others, departed to take tea in the captain’s cabin. Sitting just above that of the admiral, they could hear the liveliness of the conversation from below. Stories were being told, and judging by the raucous laughter they were not fit for the ears of the gentler sex.

  ‘Listen to them, the boobies,’ Mrs Lipton said, though there was a wistful air to it, as though she longed to be included.

  Just as Mrs Lipton was rather blowsy and over-scented, showing a bit too much bosom in her décolleté gown, the other lady brought from Gibraltar was a mousy, quiet creature, a lieutenant’s wife who was entirely dominated by the spouse of her superior officer; she would have been that anyway, given her manner.

  ‘It shows great devotion in your husbands to bring you with them on this service.’

  Mrs Lipton looked at Emily with a knowing grin. ‘The devotion is all mine, my dear lady, and it is based on the sound knowledge that the major is not one to be let loose where the possibility of a’wandering exists. In short, it is my policy to never let the major too far out of my sight.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Leaning forward, and showing even more flesh, Mrs Lipton added in a whisper. ‘He’s a randy fellow, I can tell you, which is fine in the connubial chamber, but he will not be let free to cast his favours elsewhere. I daresay, seeing you have followed Captain Barclay out here, you might have the same feelings about your own husband.’

  ‘I have no fears on that score, Mrs Lipton,’ Emily replied, vehemently.

  It was quite obvious, from the look that produced, the major’s wife had quite misunderstood the tone, o
bviously seeing, in the emphatic way such a suggestion had been refuted, good grounds for believing it to be true.

  ‘I would say such a risk is greater here in Toulon than ever it was in Gibraltar. One wonders how many women in this place, given they are taking refuge from those revolutionary rogues, would happily surrender their virtue for the attentions of an English officer?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  Mrs Lipton clearly warmed to the notion of what her revolutionary rogues might do to such women, indeed so spicy were her predictions that she nearly produced an attack of the vapours from the lieutenant’s wife.

  ‘Please, Mrs Lipton,’ that lady protested, her handkerchief pressed to her mouth so hard it muffled the words. ‘Desist from describing these horrors.’

  ‘They are, my dear girl, no more than a woman’s lot. We have, since time immemorial, been the plaything of the conqueror.’

  Emily decided Mrs Lipton had overindulged in the bottle, while also deducing that the prospect of being the chattel of a conqueror appealed to something in her nature.

  ‘A turn on deck perhaps?’

  In shawls, for the wind had got up and was strong enough to chill, the ladies walked on the poop, which gave them a commanding view of the entire anchorage, and that allowed Emily to steer the conversation away from matters carnal to the points of interest around the deep bay. She pointed out the various buildings of note, only to be set on her heels by the loudly delivered Lipton responses.

  The citadel was not, as had been explained to Emily, to be admired for the designs of the late, much admired, Comte de Vauban, but dismissed as an ancient ruin her husband’s troops would demolish in an hour; the cathedral was no more than an edifice designed to perpetuate dangerous Popish dogma, for the lady was a committed Anglican who adhered to the Thirty-Nine Articles and saw no book greater than the King James Bible; that the hills, with brown grass, might blossom with rain held no attraction for her and the idea that lavender grew in huge fields on the plateau was pooh-poohed as Gallic exaggeration. Some interest was afforded to the hospital, though Mrs Lipton had to struggle, and she failed to hide her disapproval that a lady of Emily Barclay’s standing might actually consent to administer to the inmates.