An Awkward Commission

by David Donachie

  The porter departed, the face outside the door less pleasant as he contemplated the two pieces of copper in his hand, for he was a man accustomed to silver at the very least, and in the case of proper folk with a rate of servants, the odd half guinea. In the basement he moaned to the storekeeper that, ‘This new fellow is no gent, but Ezekiel Didcot knows how to get his due. And I shall, be it in dribs and drabs of copper, I’ll get my due.’

  Didcot had left John Pearce wondering how he was going to pay for this, or rather how he could avoid payment, for he knew he lacked the means for such accommodation. Matters were not improved by his missive from the Admiralty, his lieutenant’s commission, along with a bill for eleven shillings and eight pence due to the clerk who had drawn it up, to be paid at his earliest convenience. The enclosure also informed him that he needed to attend the building to swear allegiance to the King, his heirs and successors, as well as the need to confirm that he was not of the proscribed Catholic faith, this insured by his acceptance of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Protestant religion.

  By the time he had contemplated those, and decided they could be safely ignored, Didcot was back with claret and biscuits, followed by a row of servants with a bath and jugs of hot water, that soon transferred, and another bearing a battered old trunk. They departed, but Didcot did not, talking incessantly, which occasioned another raid on the guest’s rapidly diminishing funds to see the porter out the door, backing out with the words: ‘A warming pan for the bed, your honour?’

  ‘No!’ Pearce snapped, closing the door.

  A muffled demand came through the panelling. ‘An’ dinner, sir?’

  ‘I’ll be eating out.’

  There was a short letter from Annabel Fitzgerald in the trunk, which managed to be affectionate and distant in the same set of sentences, alluding to the pleasure they had taken in each others’ company while making it plain, without saying as much, that it was now in the past. There was no invitation to call, merely a reference to the fact that, given his fame, and the way he was certain to be lionised, they would be bound to meet at the places frequented by those who moved in the best social circles.

  ‘My dear lady,’ he said quietly to himself. ‘I suspect society is just as fickle as you. They will have forgotten the Valmy in a week or two.’

  Pearce stripped off and lowered himself gratefully into the bath, but he did not linger, for to do so only produced ruminations on his predicament, none of which was comfortable. As soon as he was clean he was out and dried and into the clean clothing he found in the trunk. Then, taking the fine headed notepaper from the desk drawer and sharpening a quill, he dipped his pen and began to write. The hotel had provided wax and its own seal, which he used to secure the letters. He had to wait awhile, until his boots were returned, which obliged him to ignore the knocking on the door and wait till Didcot left them. As soon as the porter was gone he had them on, and went down the stairs and out through the lobby like a man with much on his mind.

  Pearce arranged the delivery of his letters by a post boy for a penny, the addresses of the Admiralty and Downing Street being almost next door to each other, both also destinations that would not pay for the carriage. Taking a seat in the tavern from which he had engaged the boy, he ate a filling pie washed down with a very pleasant tankard of porter for a tenth of the price he would have paid at Nerot’s, ruminating as he did so on what his missives would achieve. He had no faith that the letter to the secretary at the Admiralty would produce anything, and pinned what little hope he had on that he had sent to William Pitt, requesting an interview.

  An hour later he turned up at the front door of His Majesty’s First Lord of the Treasury, and was shown into an anteroom to wait, offered a glass of wine which he declined, something he came to regret as one hour stretched to two, then three and more, so that it was nearing ten-of-the-clock before he was ushered into Pitt’s presence. Slim, pale, and still looking absurdly young for his office, William Pitt sat at a large table which seemed to fill most of a spacious room. With him was a solid, well-fed looking and florid fellow, and on the table the papers they had been going through, as well as several empty claret bottles, which they appeared to have consumed while doing so.

  ‘Lieutenant Pearce, if I’m not mistaken.’

  He’s drunk, thought Pearce, looking at the bottles and catching the slur in the voice.

  ‘Allow me to name to you a fellow countryman of yours, Henry Dundas.’

  ‘Laddie,’ Dundas said, using a diminutive, and in a deep, Scottish-accented voice, that was very reminiscent of his father. ‘I knew old Adam well, sir, having crossed swords with him, verbally of course, many times. I commiserate with you in your loss and damn, as I am sure you do, the villains who did such a thing.’

  Dundas too had had a drink, it was in the high colour of his cheeks, but he seemed less affected by it than Pitt. ‘We shall have to be about our business, Will, we are due in the hoose at this very moment.’

  ‘Then we will need a couple to help us through, Harry, so pull the bell for more. Will you join us in a glass, young Pearce?’

  ‘No thank you, sir. If time is pressing, so is my business.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘I believe when we last met I alluded to the fact that I was illegally pressed into the Navy.’

  ‘Did you? I do not recall.’

  ‘Along with several other unfortunates. Indeed, I hope one day to the see the captain involved, one Ralph Barclay, in court for the offence.’

  Dundas cut in, speaking from the side of the great fireplace, in the act of tugging on the bell pull. ‘I would’na pin too much faith in a satisfactory outcome of something like that, laddie. We are at war, or did ye no ken?’

  ‘Careful, Harry,’ Pitt cut in, with a lopsided smile, ‘your “laddie” is a proven fighter.’

  Pearce replied to Dundas. ‘And we, sir, I believe, have laws that war does not suspend.’

  ‘One or two of which, I ken, you and your late father were wont to break, to the point of both prison and flight. Sedition, was it not, scurrilous writings saying that what happened to King Louis should have been repeated in the case of our Geordie?’

  The smile that accompanied those words had an undertone of menace, as Pearce recalled his father’s opinion of Henry Dundas, which was not a high or flattering one. Called the ‘Uncrowned King of Scotland’, he was the leader of a large group of Scottish MPs, a staunch supporter of Pitt and his government, and so skilled in jobbery and corruption that his name was wont to induce apoplexy in those who opposed him, which included a goodly number of fellow-Tories. Pearce also knew the pamphlet to which Dundas was referring had called for the peaceful removal of the King, an abolition of the monarchy, having been written long before King Louis’ execution. Adam Pearce would never have proposed decapitation for any human being, even a tyrant, but there was no point in saying so, for if time was pressing, there was no time to debate the rights and wrongs of Republicanism.

  ‘Be that as it may, Mr Dundas, I have several companions still illegally forced to serve in the Navy. Admiral Lord Howe promised to release them and has not done so. I tried to get him to act in Bath, but I failed to even get to see him.’

  ‘An indolent fellow,’ said Pitt, reaching for a half-full bottle and filling his glass. ‘Only the insistence of the King secured his appointment. But then, the King did the same for you when he demanded your promotion, did he not? So we must not complain.’

  A servant entered and placed two bottles on the table, this while Pitt emptied into his mouth what he had just poured. The corks had been removed then replaced so that they were proud of the neck.

  ‘I need your assistance to get them released, Mr Pitt.’

  ‘That’s coming it a wee bit high is it not, laddie, importuning the King’s Furst Minister for such a paltry purpose?’

  ‘It may be paltry to you, Mr Dundas, but to me it is important.’

  The shrug that he received in response was eloquent enough; what
was important to Pearce was not important to men such as these. ‘We must go, Will, or Fox will start debating the West Indian situation without us. Much hangs on it.’

  Pearce spoke to Pitt in desperation, for he suspected that if he failed in this interview he would struggle to get another. What he said was impulsive, but it was the only thing he could think of. ‘Sir, at the King’s levee you promised me if you could ever be of service to me, I was to call upon you. I do so now.’

  It was Dundas who replied, leaving Pearce to wonder who held the power in the room. ‘It is beyond our office to interfere in the business of the Navy, laddie. Lord Chatham and the sea officers of the Board of Admiralty would, quite rightly, tell us to poke our noses elsewhere, and the serving sailors would be a damn sight less polite.’

  ‘Then give me the means to free them myself.’

  ‘How can I do that?’ slurred Pitt.

  ‘I have a lieutenant’s commission. Get me a place on a vessel going to the Mediterranean, for that is where these companions of mine are headed.’

  ‘Will!’

  ‘Quite,’ the First Lord of the Treasury replied, nodding to Dundas and hauling himself slowly to his feet to stand, swaying ever so slightly. ‘If I made such a promise, then I shall redeem it, for I would not have it said that I am not a man of my word. Leave a letter with one of my secretaries, tell me what you need and where you are to be found, and I will see what I can do.’

  ‘A letter from you demanding their release would carry much weight.’

  The tone of Pitt’s voice had a harder edge than hitherto. ‘I seem to recall I am obliged to you for one favour, Mr Pearce, not two.’

  ‘Be so good as to be off, Pearce,’ insisted Dundas, ‘for if we dinna attend the hoose those damned Whigs might try to force a vote.’

  Pearce bit his tongue then, holding back the desire to know how two men as inebriated as these could possibly engage in debate. Had he seen them enter the chamber later, each with a bottle in hand and their arms around each other for mutual support, he would have wondered even more. But then, a look at both the government and the opposition benches, and the sound of the raucous and uncontrolled cheers and jeers which greeted their arrival, would have established that the two men, as far as being drunk was concerned, were in good company.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  His first call, the following morning, was to the Admiralty, where he faced, for the first time in his life, the creatures who guarded access to the building, the uniformed doormen. Unbeknown to this visitor they were notorious throughout the Navy, well-remunerated fellows who could barely be brought to civility by the arrival of an admiral, were generally indifferent to Post Captains – hardly surprising given they were better paid – so that their attitude to lieutenants was nothing short of rude.

  ‘Can’t do any oath swearing today, they be holding their levee,’ insisted one, a gnarled-faced gnome who smelt strongly of stale beer and tobacco. ‘Come back tomorrow.’

  ‘I was not aware they held such a thing.’

  ‘I daresay there be a rate of things you don’t know, young fellow, which ain’t much use when you’se at sea. Happens one day every week, and if’n you ain’t got a written invite, you can’t pass through this door.’

  There were two things of which John Pearce, looking at this pair, was sure: that no amount of pleading would help, and that he lacked the only other thing – money – which might get him inside. So he mentioned that which he had posted yesterday.

  ‘You sent in a letter, you say?’

  ‘I did,’ Pearce replied, ‘to the First Secretary.’

  ‘Why, I suspect he is a’reading it now, young sir, and wondering what he did to deserve your condescension.’

  The other doorman wheezed out a laugh, proving to Pearce the thought which had already occurred: that he was being toyed with. ‘All I want to know is if it has been received and read.’

  ‘Have you any notion of waiting for a reply?’

  ‘I do not have time to wait.’

  Nor, thought Pearce, do I want to part with a sixpence to read it.

  ‘Hear that, Alfred? Our young pup has no time to wait. I reckon the Frenchies would be quaking in their boots to know this lad’s a’coming to do battle wi’ them.’

  The other fellow was looking over his shoulder at the busy Whitehall traffic. ‘Well, he best be off to his fight, for we’ve got no time to indulge him. I suggest that you move along, for I see Captain Orde approaching, who is on the list of invites, an’ we has no mind to keep him waiting for the likes of you.’

  It was only curiosity that kept Pearce there until this officer was greeted and passed inside, that and a feeling of certainty that he would witness what he did, the passing of coin from this Captain Orde to the two now utterly obsequious, forelock-tugging doormen, which only served to underline his need for money. His next call was to see about getting some.

  ‘Mr Davidson will see you now, Lieutenant.’

  Pearce rose from the chair which he had occupied this last half hour and followed the fellow who had summoned him into a large office, leaving behind him an impressive bustle of activity, of the kind that convinced him that he was about to deal with a serious man of business, for he had been listed in the newspapers as the agent handling the prize fund due from the capture of the Valmy. The first thing that struck him about Davidson’s appearance was his apparent youthfulness; such an enterprise as the one he had observed surely should have someone of more age and gravity at its head. Yet the smile was disarming, the welcome genuine on a young, attractive face, but the news the prize agent had to impart, once he had identified himself and where he came from, was far from encouraging, all hinging on the fact that the French 74 had been taken through the efforts of two vessels, with two commanders.

  ‘I represent Captain Marchand of HMS Centurion, while your superior officer, Mr Colbourne, is represented by the company of Ommaney & Druce. It is they who have questioned the distribution, which has a share allotted to Mr Colbourne as being that of a lieutenant, instead of as a captain.’

  Pearce knew all about that dispute, and the way he had referred to Marchand by his post rank, while calling Colbourne a mere Mister was revealing; Davidson was far from being a non-partisan representative.

  ‘He was captain of the Griffin,’ Pearce insisted.

  ‘Master and Commander at a stretch, though an armed cutter does not carry the rank, Mr Pearce, but not made post and on the captain’s list. You must understand, to acknowledge that Lieutenant Colbourne, as he was at the time of the capture, shares in a captain’s rank and entitlements would cost Captain Marchand several thousand pounds. At present, since Captain Marchand was under Admiralty orders he has three-eights of the total, with no commanding admiral to satisfy. Were he to accede to Mr Colbourne’s demands, half of that would be forfeit, and the complications of dealing with the senior officer who wrote out orders for HMS Griffin would just add another layer of difficulty.’

  Pearce knew that whatever the arguments, they had no effect on him except delay. His share would be fixed whatever the outcome of the dispute. ‘How long before it is decided?’

  ‘A piece of rope is a fair guide,’ Davidson replied, with an almost embarrassed shrug. ‘Lawyers do not rush in these matters. I have known such cases take years to resolve.’

  ‘I need money now.’

  Seeing the enquiring look, he decided not to mention Nerot’s Hotel, which had provided him with a good night’s sleep, and that morning with a sturdy breakfast. But he had no trouble thinking of a reason that would make sense to the man on the other side of the desk, even if it was a stretching of the truth.

  ‘I have expectations of a place and I need to buy the necessities an officer requires for sea service. Everything I owned went down with the ship.’

  ‘You were a midshipman, my clerk informed me.’ Davidson smiled as Pearce nodded, with a clear air of sympathy. ‘I fear a mid’s cut will scarce suffice to provide for the whole of your nee
ds, sir.’

  ‘It will go some way to offsetting the costs,’ Pearce replied, without certainty, for he had no real idea of what he needed to go to sea, only that he might require money to pay for his commission and, more pressingly, his hotel.

  ‘I have advanced money to those members of the Centurion’s crew who have requested it, but I am obliged to do so at a discount which reflects the burden I have to carry in advancing sums for which I have no sure date for redemption.’

  ‘Offset, no doubt, by the interest you will earn.’

  Davidson was quite sharp then. ‘You will have seen, while waiting, that I carry substantial overheads which must be met somehow.’

  ‘How much would I be due in those circumstances?’

  Davidson reached behind him for a large and weighty ledger, thumped it onto the table, and smiled at Pearce before opening it. Running his finger down a column of figures his brow furrowed. He went to another and did the same until he eventually stopped.

  ‘Pearce, you say?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m afraid I have you listed as a landsman, Mr Pearce, scarcely credible given the uniform you are wearing.’

  The reply carried all the tension Pearce felt. ‘Captain Colbourne rated me a midshipman.’

  ‘Not apparently in the last muster book he sent in, from which I take my figures. Do you have anything in writing to that effect?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And it is to be assumed that the last books went down with the ship?’ As Pearce nodded, he tapped the ledger. ‘Then, unless you can produce some proof I cannot do other than take from this. Mr Colbourne can, of course, change it, with the consent of the other party.’ Seeing the look of Pearce’s face he added, ‘I can write to him asking for clarification.’

  Pearce was thinking hard, sure that the last submission of Griffin’s muster book had been after his elevation, because Colbourne had been adamant he would not get any pay for a rank that officially carried none. In fact, it only mattered in the issue of prize money. Their relationship had been far from good, in truth at times it had been downright hostile. Had the man merely not bothered, or had he humbugged him, as he had done more than once before?