An Awkward Commission

by David Donachie

  ‘Well now,’ Taberly concluded, rubbing his prominent chin. ‘There will be no one aboard Leander willing to stand against you after that display, but I daresay when we join the fleet in a few days there will be others who fancy a bout. They, like the crew here, would not know of your skill, and it will be in our interest not to let on. Hell’s teeth, it is only by chance that I myself did. An inter-ship contest could be formal and sanctioned, could even be fought ashore. Who knows, perhaps the admirals may take to such a spectacle, which will mean rich pickings for us if we triumph, for it would not surprise others that we back our own man.’

  ‘Us,’ hissed Rufus, as Taberly turned and moved away. ‘What does the sod mean by us?’

  ‘Pearce should see this,’ said Charlie, as the lieutenant appeared to crow as he began to collect his winnings from those of his wardroom companions, the glum-looking lot who had backed Clipe. ‘If he had got us off, like he said he would…’

  ‘Enough,’ snapped Michael, ignoring the pain in his jaw. ‘You have a way of blaming John-boy for all our ills, Charlie, without ever being sure that he is at fault. Sure, he could not have known what was going to happen any more than we did ourselves. We were given one hour to shift and no more.’

  Charlie Taverner stood to his full height, the tricorn hat he had hung onto since being pressed set back at a tilt showing his fair hair. His normal good looks were spoiled by the petulant cast of his features. ‘He’s deserted us before, and surely he should have got back to save us from this.’

  ‘But he did come back the first time,’ said Rufus Dommet, his face bearing his usual look of innocence.

  ‘If you look across the deck, Charlie,’ hissed Michael, ‘I think you will see where the blame for this lies.’

  Turning, Charlie followed Michael’s angry glare. Cornelius Gherson, a man pressed on the same night as them, though not from the Pelican, had been a pest ever since they had first made his acquaintance. He was standing on his own, the crowd having cleared, a hand held out in which he tossed several gleaming coins, evidence that some aboard had not beggared themselves with whores and illicit drink. The look on his absurdly handsome, babyish face was enough to inform the trio from where Taberly had got his information about Michael’s prowess, for Gherson had seen him fight. It would have been he that saw the chance to make money, which seemed to be his abiding concern in life; he, the practised sneak, who would have hinted to Taberly that O’Hagan and Clipe would be a good match. Only a notion perhaps, for the sod would never admit to it, but just then the lieutenant moved toward Gherson and patted him on the back with a clear air of gratitude. The look and the sneer aimed at Michael then was like saying that the thought of his culpability was as true as Holy Writ.

  ‘We should have let that bastard drown,’ growled Charlie.

  Michael slowly raised himself off the stool, easing each pain as he did so. ‘Jesus, I don’t recall havin’ a hand in the saving of him then, but I reckon we all regret the saving of him later. As the Blessed Virgin is my guide, the devil is in him.’

  ‘Perhaps we should teach him a lesson, Michael, have him learn that those fists of yours are not there for his profit?’

  O’Hagan slowly shook his head. ‘He’s kissed Taberly’s arse, Charlie, and lined his purse. If we touch him we would have to silence the bugger, else we’d be the ones to suffer, for he would not still his tongue.’

  A sailor approached Gherson as Taberly moved away and asked him something, which elicited a nod and a hand out demand for payment. A wad of tobacco was proffered, Gherson’s fee for letter writing, something of which he had let the crew know he was adept. On a make and mend day, those with family or a true wife would pass up part of their ration to get a letter penned to go on the next British vessel heading for home.

  The notion that HMS Leander would join the fleet, as well as Taberly’s hopes of a profitable contest, was dashed as soon as they opened up the Lisbon roadstead, for it was bereft of anything other than Portuguese warships, and Captain Tucker was bluntly informed by the naval resident that having replenished both wood and water, HMS Leander was to proceed with all despatch to join Lord Hood, who, in company with the Spanish Admiral Langara and his Cadiz squadron, was taking his fleet into the Mediterranean.

  Lieutenant Henry Digby, aboard the 12-gun sloop, HMS Weazel, could not help but admire what he saw over the stern, even if it had been the same for several days. Under a warm sun and a cloudless sky, the two fleets of Britain and Spain ploughed their way across the deep blue Mediterranean. Leading the main column of 74’s was HMS Victory, flagship of the commanding admiral, Lord Hood, courses, topsails and jibs stretched taut, with each ship taking station upon her at a strictly defined distance of a cables’ length. Over to the south lay the second column, just as rigidly fixed on the flagship of the second-in-command, Admiral Hotham, and God help any vessel which strayed, for its number would be up the masthead of Victory in a flash, the instructions from the Captain of the Fleet to keep station, reinforced with a gun.

  That the Dons were less rigid in their dispositions, less inclined to properly hold their station on their flagship, was only to be expected; they lacked the sea-going ability and discipline of their British allies. Digby knew if he climbed to the tops with a telescope, there to join the lookouts, he would see all around the fleet a screen of frigates and sloops like his own, set at distance enough to warn should an enemy warship be sighted on the horizon. The other task they performed was just as vital, to bespeak every passing fishing boat or neutral trading vessel, to glean information on what was happening to the north, on the great landmass that was France.

  Thus they had learnt throughout the fleet that Provence and the Rhône Valley were in turmoil, from the boats that plied daily between fleet and flagship that the port city of Marseilles had declared against the Jacobins and sent packing, not without bloodshed, those who supported the revolutionary government in Paris. Like many others, Digby had speculated that Lord Hood might make for that place to support the rebels, only to realise when the course remained steady that their C-in-C had his eye firmly fixed on finding and beating the enemy fleet. That achieved, all things would be possible.

  Somewhere ahead, off Toulon, would be HMS Brilliant, the vessel on which he had originally set sail from England. The thought of the frigate and her complement brought to him a slew of different emotions; the fact that service under Ralph Barclay ha a cloudless sky, the two fleets of Britain and Spain ploughed their way across the deep blue Mediterranean. Leading the main column of 74’s was HMS Victory, flagship of the commanding admiral, Lord Hood, courses, topsails and jibs stretched taut, with each ship taking station upon her at a strictly defined distance of a cables’ length. Over to the south lay the second column, just as rigidly fixed on the admiral who was now heading towards a rendezvous off Toulon. It was a double irony that he had been shifted a second time, to the sloop HMS Weazel, though recalling the lack of warmth in wardroom of HMS Britannia towards him as a new officer, the very obvious fact that he had been treated as some kind of interloper, it was hardly surprising.

  Never having been in a flagship wardroom before Digby had nothing with which to make a comparison, but it had been made plain to him on his arrival that he had cut across the hawse of the Premier, who had been manoeuvring to have a relative of his own appointed to the first vacant place, that of a lieutenant called Glaister who had been shifted to Brilliant. The rest of those present; naval and marine officers, the purser and the master, had taken their cue from the man who led their mess, and, while staying within the narrowest band of politeness, had done nothing to make him feel a true part of things; no invitations to play cards or backgammon, little in the way of enquiry about his career to date or the possibility of mutual acquaintances. It had actually come as a relief when he was told he was being moved to this sloop, presumably because the Premier, a powerful figure aboard any vessel, had preyed upon his captain, who in turn had persuaded Admiral Hotham that Henry Digby, even if
he proved disgruntled, was an officer who had little in the way of influence, and one who could safely be ignored.

  The problem on Weazel was the master and commander who captained her, or rather his addiction to the bottle. A choleric-faced fellow called Benton, he seemed never to be really sober, even when he appeared briefly on deck of a morning to check that his ship was still in sight of the fleet. The man was rude by his very nature, seemingly incapable of saying anything praiseworthy, more inclined to nit-pick and complain, his comments just on the very edge of that which could be challenged as outright denigration. Digby’s predecessor had used what connections he had to get out from under Benton, something the present incumbent knew he probably lacked; had he possessed any worthwhile patrons, he would still be aboard Hotham’s flagship.

  ‘On the whole, I think I would prefer to be back in the frigate.’

  ‘Sir?’ asked the young midshipman standing close to him, a freckle-faced youth called Harbin, who made up in application for what he seemed to lack in brains.

  Digby smiled, wondering if the boy thought him mad, talking to himself. ‘I was just ruminating, young feller, on the merits of sailing in a frigate as opposed to this vessel.’

  ‘Weazel is uncomfortably small, sir.’

  ‘Frigates are certainly not spacious, either, but they are rightly called the eyes of the fleet, and often away from the prying interference of very senior admirals. That has to be worth something.’

  The lookout called down, ‘Victory signalling, your honour.’

  Digby raised his glass to look at the flagship, seeing the various pennants run up, that followed by a puff of white smoke from the signal gun. He needed no book to read them, having seen the flags before.

  ‘Agamemnon again,’ he said.

  He swung the telescope round to look at the sixty-four, halfway down Hood’s main column, and the men running through the rigging, seeking to take in reefs in the sails to slow her down, for the problem for Captain Horatio Nelson was not to keep up with the fleet, but to sail slowly enough to keep proper station, for his ship was a real flyer. A crash of marine boots told Digby his captain was coming on deck, and he and the boy with him turned to raise their hats as Benton, his face dark-skinned over ruby-red, took a telescope from the rack, and swaying more than the ship, trained it over the rail.

  ‘I see our friend is entertaining us again,’ he said.

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘One wonders at Captain Nelson sometimes, if his travails are quite as serious as he makes out, given that he’s a man fond of attracting attention to himself. It would not surprise me to find he fails to keep station on purpose, just to ensure he is not forgotten. Still, Lord Hood seems content to indulge him. Personally, I think it a mistake to do so.’

  There was a note of pique in that last remark, underlining several things; the first the rumour that relations between the two admirals were not of the best, the second that Benton was a partisan of Hotham, who was no doubt the man who had given him this sloop to command. Lastly that it was known that Lord Hood admired Nelson, a view not universally shared by every captain or admiral, and allowed him a latitude at captains’ conferences he rarely extended to others.

  ‘I went aboard Agamemnon with Admiral Hotham once, in Lisbon,’ Benton continued. ‘I cannot tell you of the state of the deck, nor the familiar way that his men address him. He might as well be a common seaman himself. And the man is a light head in the article of drink. Two or three glasses and he is quite intoxicated.’

  The way Benton said that, Digby suspected that he saw such inability to imbibe as a greater disgrace than an untidy deck or some over-familiarity from the lower deck. More interesting to him was the relationship between the two men who led the fleet, surely something which could influence its effectiveness. On arriving in Lisbon and finding Hotham still there, it soon became common knowledge that Lord Hood had used high words to demand to be told why. To his mind the fleet he was sent to command should have been on its way to Toulon well before the day it actually sailed, something it did as soon as he could issue his orders. Hotham’s protests were not only brushed aside, the man had been dressed down like the newest midshipman, and was boiling with indignation because of it, and it was said he had written home to complain. There was further delay at Cadiz, while Hood harried his Spanish allies and got them to sea.

  So it was that HMS Firefly had found them not much beyond Gibraltar, with Captain Gould going aboard to give Admiral Lord Hood a message that went round every ship under his command in a day; that the enemy fleet had not been ready for sea as of ten days previously, but that it was working double tides to get yards crossed, sails hoisted and stores aboard. Firefly was ordered straight back to Toulon, with another sloop in attendance, with orders to ensure that the fleet was kept informed, especially if the French got any capital ships to sea, the whole incident inducing a palpable air of excitement throughout the fleet.

  In calling aboard all senior officers to disseminate this information, it had been spread by the various barge crews as they returned to their ships. Likewise it was no secret, happily imparted to those same barge crews by the cabin servants, that Nelson has asked to be sent ahead, with as many frigates as could be spared, to join HMS Brilliant and help keep the French fleet locked up, if necessary to fight them as they tried to clear their harbour. Hood had been quite amenable to the idea, but the Dons, lukewarm allies at best, more accustomed to fighting against King George’s Navy than sailing alongside, had been less enthusiastic, an attitude Hotham had apparently shared. In the face of so many objections, the idea had been dropped.

  ‘Well, Mr Digby, how are you enjoying service aboard my ship. A different kettle of fish from your previous commission, eh?’

  Which one was the man talking about, frigate or flagship? And he had to admit to being surprised by the friendly tone, so very different to that Benton normally employed, which meant that it took Digby a second or two to answer, and robbed his reply of any sincerity.

  ‘Very much so, sir.’

  The captain picked up the hesitation, and reverted to a tone instantly more familiar. His ruby-red cheeks deepened considerably. ‘Captain Barclay got rid of you, though, did he not?’

  ‘I’m sure he had his reasons, sir.’

  ‘Take care that I don’t discern the same ones, Mr Digby, whatever they are.’

  With that, Benton left the deck, his gait betraying him just once as the swell showed a slight increase, causing him to stagger. Comparing the two captains, and on the principle of the lesser of two evils, Henry Digby could not but prefer Barclay. A hard, determined man, yes, but a competent sailor, if a touch impetuous and prize hungry. He, too, was a man with obvious faults, though over-indulgence in the bottle was not really one of them. For instance he found it too easy to be jealous, a fatal flaw in man who had a young wife with him at sea. There had been that affair with the pressed seaman Pearce, for one, which had caused such disquiet amongst the crew. He could clearly recall himself being unhappy about the punishment, just as he could remember the way that Barclay’s wife had made her own displeasure plain.

  It had proved to be a lesson in the limitations of command, and Digby had taken note of it. Not that Pearce was innocent in the matter of his own misfortune, for the fellow had an arrogance about him which was misplaced given his station. Idly he wondered where he was now; probably ashore, and damned glad to be so, but that did not last, for his thoughts quickly turned again to his old ship and his old commander, somewhere ahead, over the bowsprit, patrolling impatiently while waiting for the fleet to arrive.

  CHAPTER SIX

  John Pearce was sailing the English Channel once more, this time trying to learn as much as he could from the roly-poly owner of the postal brig. The captain of the Lorne was someone to whom he had taken an instant liking; from the moment he had come aboard he had been in receipt of nothing but kindness and consideration, which extended to the best available accommodation, a fuss about his comfort plus the p
rovision of food and drink. Hailing from the Irish province of Ulster, Captain McGann was easy to like; everything that happened for good or seeming ill made him laugh, and that was wont to affect his whole being. His shoulders shook and his substantial belly heaved.

  Things were bound to be amiss with any group of seamen who had spent a last night ashore; there were sore heads a’plenty from the young and unattached, allied to regret from those who loved their wives, and impatience from those glad to be free once more from domestic ties. Their captain was the very antithesis of those Pearce had served before, more like a father to the men who crewed his ship than a captain, a feeling that they returned in full measure.

  A tactile man, dressed in the same manner as his crew, McGann was more inclined to cradle his sailors with a friendly arm than chastise them. It soon transpired – a fact Pearce learnt while the Blue Peter was still flying – that every one of them had sailed with him before; they knew his ways and he knew theirs, as well as their families, wives, children and even the mothers of the younger crew. Lorne was that rare thing, a happy ship, a truth made doubly obvious before they had cleared St Helens. The men of the brig went about their tasks without so much as a shouted order, for their captain spoke quietly, and followed every request to shift sail or haul on a rope with a sincerely added ‘please’.

  From those same hands – a talkative, friendly lot – Pearce learnt the respect in which McGann was held, told by each one to whom he spoke that their master was a man who knew the ways of the sea better than anyone afloat, and was at the self-same time a complete mandrill ashore, for he drank too much and had a conviction when inebriated, with no basis whatever in truth, that any woman who came within his line of vision was madly in love with him, and determined to drag him to the altar.