The Admirals' Game

by David Donachie

‘Very amusing! What do you know of the situation here in Toulon?’

  Pearce hesitated for a moment before replying, his mind working hard to see the message behind the question. ‘I would judge, sir, since you bring the matter up, that it is in the balance.’

  ‘Very much so,’ Hood asserted. ‘We cannot hold it without more troops.’

  ‘It is the cannon,’ Parker continued. ‘We lack the means to push back the French artillery on a front broad enough to secure the anchorage. Yes, we can attack each position individually, but that creates as many problems as it solves and costs us lives in the process. That in turn weakens the garrison.’

  ‘The trouble is, Pearce,’ said Hood, taking up the discussion, ‘I have just had a dispatch from Billy Pitt to tell me there are no troops available in England.’

  ‘Did not a transport arrive from Gibraltar?’

  ‘If you’ll forgive the pun, Pearce,’ said Parker, ‘they are a drop in the ocean.’

  ‘Never mind puns,’ Hood growled, ‘we need at least ten times their number.’

  They were working in tandem, seeking to wear down a man who was clearly sceptical, so Parker was next. ‘The Austrians have promised troops, but they show no sign of ever arriving. The Spaniards claim to be fully committed and our Piedmontese allies must defend their own lands from the French Army in Italy. The nearest reinforcements who could move quickly to shore up the defences are in Naples, and they have already supplied a substantial body of sound troops, five thousand in number. If we can get their Sicilian Majesties to dispatch the same number of men for a second time we can frustrate the French until doomsday.’

  ‘And given time,’ Hood added, ‘perhaps our political masters will see that the place to fight the monster hatched in Paris is here.’

  They kept talking, giving Pearce an overview of what was a clearly serious situation and one that threatened to get worse. A forward-thinking fellow called Buonaparte had taken over command of the artillery and was showing an alarming degree of enterprise, despite suffering casualties, in the placing and working of his guns. The defenders needed a general assault along the whole eastern sector to push General Carteaux’s forces back towards Ollioules, on the main road to Marseilles. Hold them that far out and the port was safe; let them progress as they had been and this Buonaparte would render the anchorage untenable before Christmas.

  ‘The trouble is, Pearce, that we do not want our allies to know that no troops will be coming from England. Given that knowledge, and drawing the conclusions which are obvious, they may decide they need to look to their own safety.’

  Pearce looked at Parker, wondering if the captain of the fleet realised what he was saying: these two had a plan to keep their allies in the dark, hardly the right way to treat those prepared to support Britannia.

  ‘A written request to the Neapolitan Court is out of the question. I could not write such a dispatch without informing them and asking them to concur and sign it. The request, therefore, must be a private one and carried by human means.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You,’ Hood nodded.

  ‘Why? Surely you have an abundance of officers who can do this with the required discretion.’

  ‘Let us just say, Lieutenant Pearce,’ Parker responded, in a rare burst of honesty, ‘that we have few officers on whose discretion we can insist.’

  Hood spoke next. ‘You, or rather HMS Faron, will be given dispatches for Commodore Linzee, who is at present on his way to Tunis, with orders to make an agreement, whatever the cost, with the Bey of that troublesome state. On your way you will stop at Naples, require the ambassador there, Sir William Hamilton, to get you access to Queen Caroline…’

  ‘Why the queen?’

  ‘The king is an idiot,’ Parker replied, ‘it is she who runs the country.’

  ‘And,’ Hood added, ‘given she is sister to Marie Antoinette, her attitude to the defeat of the Revolution is, to say the least, robust. Once in her presence you will deliver a message I will dictate to you, laying out the difficulties we face. I hope that you will be so persuasive in your submission more troops will be made available to us.’

  ‘You are to tell no one of this, Pearce,’ Parker insisted.

  ‘Not even Lieutenant Digby?’

  ‘Especially not Digby.’

  ‘Then I am at a loss to see how I can get to see the Queen of Naples without him and without some explanation.’

  ‘I agree such a thing will require a fertile imagination,’ said Hood, deliberately laying his hands once more on the court martial papers. ‘But I am sure that is one attribute you possess in abundance.’

  ‘Enough eyebrows were raised when you sent for me this very morning, Lord Hood.’

  The admiral ignored that. ‘Once you have delivered your message, your ship will take on the dispatches to Tunis. Having delivered them you will return via Naples to inform me of Queen Caroline’s decision.’

  ‘On your return,’ said Parker, ‘and regardless of the outcome, you will be left alone with a quill, ink and those papers.’

  ‘I was promised a look at them before.’

  ‘Not promised, Pearce,’ Parker replied smoothly, his round face bearing that satisfied look, which Pearce found irritating. ‘Let us say it was alluded to. This time is different. Once back, and your fair copy made, you will then be sent home with your companions—’

  ‘And I for one,’ barked Hood, interrupting, ‘will not miss you.’

  ‘I can assure you, sir,’ Pearce replied in a like tone, ‘the feeling is entirely mutual.’

  ‘Captain Digby’s orders will be sent over within the hour, but you are to say nothing that alerts him to the real facts. Now, do we have an agreement?’

  Pearce took his time, making it appear as if he was examining possible alternatives; but there were none that he could think of that would solve the very obvious problems already outlined by these two scoundrels. His own resources were limited; they held all the cards, something of which they had been aware before they ever sent for him.

  As a last-ditch effort, he said, ‘I am not sure I can trust you.’

  If he had expected protestations he was sorely disappointed. Hood actually smiled, showing yellowing teeth. ‘But you have to, do you not?’ He then shouted for his senior secretary, who came quickly enough, to take the letter Pearce had been allowed to read.

  ‘The letter to Admiral Hotham, telling him I have confirmed the court martial sentence on Captain Barclay, can be sent over.’

  ‘Now, Mr Pearce,’ Hood growled, as his secretary departed, ‘let us rehearse what it is you have to say to Queen Caroline.’

  The complexities of that message – and they were many – were running though Pearce’s head as he was ferried back to his own ship; that, mixed with mental lists of who he could name to bear witness against Barclay. He thought of the man’s wife, until he recalled that she was debarred from testifying against her own husband, though that did not completely kill off the notion of asking her, given her reply would be of much interest. There was the aforementioned Midshipman Farmiloe, he had been present at the actual event and the lad seemed honest, so honest that Barclay had made sure he was sent away.

  Martin Dent would do anything to help him, he knew, as would Brilliant’s bosun, Robert Sykes, but what pleasure it would be to get some other people in the dock. Barclay himself, of course, and that little toad Toby Burns, who had apparently fabricated a whole ream of evidence to an impressment at which he had not even been present. There was the bully Devenow, devoted to Ralph Barclay; he needed to learn that blind loyalty to a man like that had a price, and Kemp, the rat-faced creature who had been the most consistent to the Pelicans in his threats of violence. Finally, there was Cornelius Gherson; put him in the dock, intimate he was in danger, and he would betray Barclay with the same alacrity with which he betrayed everybody. Thinking on him and his character – or lack of it – John Pearce had a sneaking suspicion that he would find a way to come out of any trial uns
cathed.

  What could he say to Digby? That his superior would be curious he did not doubt; elevated people like Hood did not send for the likes of John Pearce without a good reason, and there and then he decided he had to be honest. Never mind what those two buggers had said about discretion; Henry Digby was a man he liked and a man he trusted. Being open on board ship had its risks. It was a damn sight smaller than most but the same level of outright nosiness was present in his vessel as it was in any other. It required Pearce, once he had come back aboard, to sit very close to Digby and speak in a near whisper, and also to hold up his hand every time the other man looked likely to pose a question.

  ‘I was ordered not to tell you all this, sir, but it is not like our previous encounters in Biscay and Villefranche. I cannot in all conscience see how to do so without myself telling you lies, and that I am not prepared to do.’

  ‘I thank you for your confidence.’

  Wondering at the look on Digby’s face, Pearce added, ‘It would probably be best to put out of your mind everything I have said.’

  ‘Something has become plain to me, Mr Pearce.’

  ‘And that is, sir?’

  ‘It is this!’ he snapped. ‘That my continued command of this ship is entirely dependent on you.’

  ‘I think you are here because you deserve it, sir.’

  ‘No,’ Digby insisted. ‘You forget we first met when we were both serving aboard HMS Brilliant.’

  ‘How long ago that now seems.’

  Digby gave a rather forced smile. ‘I recall you were disrespectful to me, just as I recall being unsure what to do about it. But do you not see, this is different. I was sent away to the Bay of Biscay for the very same reason as the likes of Farmiloe. As a lieutenant serving under Captain Barclay, I would have been able to testify that what was being said was not true…’

  ‘Then maybe I will call you as a witness at his trial.’

  ‘Please don’t, Pearce,’ said Digby sadly. ‘I fear my association with you will already have done my career serious harm, and this secret mission to Naples will not help. And before you chastise me, which I can see in your expression, please recall that, unlike you, the King’s Navy is all I have.’

  ‘Boat coming alongside, Capt’n,’ called a voice. ‘From the flag.’

  ‘Our orders,’ said Pearce, before adding, ‘and if it turns out that what you say is true, then I can only tell you that I am sorry.’

  ‘I know, Mr Pearce, just as sure as I know you will do that which you have to, without a damn for the consequences to anyone caught in the eddies of your fixation.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  For lovers of coincidence, the sight of Toby Burns sitting in Sir William Hotham’s great cabin would have occasioned a remark, doubly so given the conversation revolved around something of the same subject as that taking place on HMS Victory. On Hotham’s table lay a copy of the same set of papers that had sat on Lord Hood’s, and Burns was being gently questioned regarding his testimony. The cabin was not excessively hot, but he felt a bead of sweat trickling down his back, and the knot of anxiety in his gut testified to the fact that he was well aware of his predicament: he knew the extent of his lies, just as knew he was trapped between two forces, neither of which he could withstand.

  The looks he had been subjected to in the gunroom on receipt of the summons ranged from anger, through wonder, to envy. For an admiral to notice a mid who was not a relative was exceptional, to witness one called to attend upon the great man for a personal interview was close to being unheard of. His first day and night in the berth had conformed to every hateful thought Toby Burns had harboured; the most senior fellow, who occupied the top of the table at mealtimes and bullied with impunity, was in his thirties, a crude-mannered, grizzled bugger who knew, by now, he would never make lieutenant, and only stayed aboard ship in a position which was unpaid because he got regular food and purloined his wine from younger midshipmen with private means. And then there was always the prospect of some great fleet action and a sufficiency of prize money, which would allow him to set up ashore.

  The rest varied from a brace of meek creatures less of an age than himself to seniors a lot older, through all the grades of society: the sons of dockyard officials keen to see their family advanced by a successful sailor, a trio who confessed to being the offspring of minor clergy, others from farming stock or trading families and one right honourable of remarkable stupidity. All were connected in some way with the service or with a naval officer who had an association with either the flagship’s captain, a relatively junior officer, or Sir William Hotham himself, and that was the reason they were serving aboard.

  The berth was filthy and stank of excessively bad food and unwashed humanity, none fitting the latter description more than the servant who attended to their needs, so dirty an individual, in grease-stained ducks and face never troubled by water, that Toby had thought him on first sight to be a blackamoor. He knew, from his bitter experience on first coming aboard his uncle’s ship, that his sea chest would be rifled as soon as his back was turned: his good shirts would disappear to be replaced by near rags, not a handkerchief would remain in his possession and he would be lucky to hang on to any stockings or his spare breeches.

  Now here he was, sat alongside a man closer to God than humanity, clutching an apple the admiral had given him, but too fearful to take a bite out of it.

  ‘I am well aware that you owe your uncle a great deal.’

  ‘I do, sir,’ he croaked in reply, this from a mouth and throat devoid of fluid.

  Hotham made an impatient gesture, as though he had breeched some deep obligation, and called for his steward to fetch some wine. ‘Forgive me, young fellow, for not anticipating your need for a drink, though I daresay if you were to essay a nibble at the fruit in your hand it would ease matters somewhat.’

  Toby raised the apple to his lips and took out a great bite, alarmed at the sound of crunching, so loud in the prevailing hush. Hotham was just looking at him, his pallid face and pale-blue eyes devoid of expression, as though waiting for something to happen. Once Toby had consumed his mouthful, he broke the silence.

  ‘I had no idea, when I invited Captain Barclay to transfer you, that you are something of a hero.’

  The mention of that did nothing to cheer the boy; Toby had, long ago, come to the conclusion that his supposed exploits on the Brittany shore had ceased to be an unmitigated blessing and were becoming something of a burden. Arriving back in England with a ship recaptured from the French, so soon after the outbreak of hostilities with the old enemy, had seen him treated as a person of special importance. Hotham was not the first admiral with whom he had dealt; he had met a number of these creatures eager to congratulate him – all of whom terrified him – before returning home to a welcome from half the town of Frome. So much was made of his exploit he had found it impossible to deny a return to duty, when what he really wanted was to stay ashore and never see the ’tween decks of a ship of war again.

  In his growing dislike of any mention of the subject, of course, there was one thing he had quite forgotten: how he had originally indulged himself in the warm glow of the praise heaped upon him, such adulation being something he had never enjoyed in his young life. The whole affair had, at the time, gone to his head – he had begun to believe the myth – only to come crashing down to earth when the true hero of the occasion, a man he never thought to meet ever in his life again, hove into view.

  ‘It was much exaggerated, sir.’

  ‘Come now, lad, no modesty is necessary here. You behaved in a gallant fashion, especially given your youth. I would be glad, however, to hear the tale from your own lips.’

  Terror replaced anxiety; did this man know the truth? Toby could not be sure he had not somehow been told, so to recount the tale as it had been originally reported, with him bravely taking command of the marooned seamen and effecting a daring escape, might dig for him a pit from which there would be no escape.

  W
hen Toby failed to respond immediately, Hotham said, ‘I suspect you find it hard to speak in the presence of someone of my rank. Yet you forget I started out as a midshipman, though it is hard to think that it was forty years ago.’

  ‘Really, sir?’ Toby replied, not sure what else to say.

  Hotham became more wistful as he continued. ‘At one time I thought I might have a lad of my own come to sea, as you have, but the Good Lord has not blessed me with a wife, and therefore that is a dream unfulfilled.’ Quickly the mood altered as he said briskly, ‘So you see, lad, you have no need to be in awe of a fellow who was once just like you.’

  ‘I hope my career enjoys the same level of success, sir.’

  ‘Perhaps it will, given you have shown such early promise.’

  ‘What was your first action, sir?’

  If Hotham realised he was being drawn away from any explanation by this young man, it did not register, for he had a fair measure of vanity, and it rankled that so few – notably Lord Hood – seemed to appreciate the high points of his career. That Hood had achieved more was due to the luck of being in the right place at the right time. It had nothing to do with judgement. Given the same opportunities, he might have surpassed his present superior. Sitting there, looking at the boy, his whole career seemed to flash before him.

  ‘Alas, Mr Burns, my first action was indecisive. I took on a Frenchman of superior force, but nothing came of it, though I managed a few months later to overhaul and take, by boarding, a privateer of twenty-six guns.’

  ‘A powerful opponent, sir.’

  ‘Indeed, and it got me my step to post rank.’

  Hotham had replied in an almost distant fashion; he was thinking of how well he had done in the Americas, with a sound action in ’57 that had seen him and his consort take as prize an enemy man o’ war. But the feeling of a life well lived could never be sustained, for it led to the misfortune he had experienced off the Scilly Isles, escorting a large home-bound convoy. The French squadron who had intercepted them had been too powerful for his few frigates to oppose, so he had been obliged to watch them help themselves to as many prizes as they could overhaul before nightfall, and that was an event which still haunted him.