An Awkward Commission

by David Donachie

  ‘Sailors?’

  ‘Please be so good as to translate for your companions,’ Hood insisted, ‘they are growing increasingly concerned.’ The Frenchman complied, which did nothing for the mood, if anything it deepened their gloom.

  ‘There is also the fact that, from information we have just received, the Toulon fleet is preparing to weigh. Let us say that I agreed to partially aid you by taking charge of the port. To secure Marseilles would require me to take my ships into a situation in which they would not be able to manoeuvre, in fact one in which they could be blockaded, cut off from the sea by your country’s warships and the land from the forces of the men you call Jacobins. I could not even contemplate putting such a notion to this conference.’

  ‘Then what are we to do Admiral?’

  ‘You must put aside any thought of going to Lyon. Instead hold as best you can with what you have, and let your enemies assault you, not the other way round. If they are, as you say, a rabble, then they will break against your defences with a greater loss than you will suffer.’

  Hood looked at his fellow admirals as he continued, as if to seek their silent support. ‘I, with my Spanish allies, must sail on to Toulon. If the fleet is at sea we must meet and defeat it, if not we must keep it bottled up in the harbour. Once that is achieved we can look at other possibilities.’

  Rebequi protested. ‘It is an opportunity not to be missed, Admiral. The whole of France could be yours.’

  ‘I, monsieur, must first hold the whole of the Mediterranean, for I am, as you can see, a sailor.’ Hood then turned to face the civilians, even if they could not understand him. ‘Believe me, messieurs, if I could help you I would, but though it may not sound this way, our interests coincide with yours. The city of Marseilles, indeed the whole of southern France, can only be held if the Toulon fleet is reduced to impotence. Monsieur Rebequi, please be so good as to translate that.’

  A loud cough came from a doorway, and Farmiloe craned to see that same fellow who had caught him eating the apple. Hood nodded to him and said, ‘Gentlemen, a turn on deck if you please, so that my servants can set things for dinner.’ In a louder voice he added, ‘Which will naturally include our newly arrived guests from Marseilles.’

  Hood was left alone, looking at something on the table, as Farmiloe began to edge out in the wake of the others. The voice stopped him dead. ‘Mr Farmiloe?

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘What the devil are you doing here?’

  It was as if all his blood had suddenly decided to fill his boots. ‘I was unsure if I was still required, sir.’

  ‘You heard what I said to the Frenchman?’ Farmiloe nodded, and Hood crooked a finger, adding, ‘But did you understand it?’

  ‘I think so,’ Farmiloe squeaked, moving towards the table, and what he now saw was a large map showing the coast of France from the Spanish border to Italy.

  Hood’s next words were larded with irony. ‘Then you are wiser than your years, boy, for there were flag officers in this cabin a moment ago that did not.’ His finger hit the chart. ‘Look here!’

  Farmiloe followed his finger, as Hood outlined the wide delta of the rivers Rhône and Durance, with the city of Marseilles further down the bay, this while a raft of servants were arriving with the leaves and supports of a large dining table.

  ‘Flat country to one side, some protection from marshes, but multiple lines of assault down the river valleys. The place is surrounded by hills but they have long crests and are some distance from the actual port. I have no faith in this ten thousand men of theirs. If the armies opposing them are rabble they cannot be much better. They may well be forced to retreat and do as I suggested, yet the defence of such a city and port would require a much larger and better trained army, which, as I pointed out to our Frenchman, I do not have. I could secure the place from the sea but to what purpose? The task of a British fleet is to fight and win at sea. Are you hungry?’

  The question threw Farmiloe, as he was concentrating on a map and a problem he barely understood, terrified he would be asked a question, but not that one.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Hood replied with a good humoured growl. ‘Never knew a mid that wasn’t. Tell my steward to set a place for you. Might tickle your ambition to see the comforts an admiral enjoys.’

  Another midshipman came through the open doorway between two bits of table. ‘Captain Knight’s compliments, sir, but HMS Tartar has made her number and is flying a signal to say she is carrying despatches.’

  ‘Signal Tartar to close. Captain to come aboard. Mr Farmiloe, you might wish to introduce yourself to the mid’s berth, but keep your ear out for the dinner drum.’

  John Pearce had never seen a fleet at sea, and he had to admit that he was mightily impressed by the sight as HMS Tartar ran between the two columns. The towering masts and huge dun coloured sails, as well as the strict order in which they held station, actually induced in him the strangest emotion, one he recognised as a swelling of pride. In a more rational moment he would have scoffed at such a feeling, but he was, for all his scepticism, a Briton, and to see these huge leviathans actually at sea, and to have some feeling for the power they projected, was stirring.

  ‘Lieutenant Pearce,’ called Captain Freemantle, ‘we have been called aboard Victory. Please be prepared to accompany me.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘And I would get one of the wardroom servants to secure your sea chest. You may not be staying with us much longer.’

  Orders rang out to get Captain Freemantle’s boat alongside, as his coxswain hurried the oarsmen to their stations. Pearce went below to collect his despatches, and to pack his own chest, taking too long about it so that a mid was sent to tell him, in a voice in which Freemantle’s irony was copied, that, ‘the captain was awaiting his pleasure.’

  Freemantle was pacing back and forth before the open gangway, his clerk beside him carrying his muster book and logs in a sack slung over his shoulder, and his greeting was in the same vein, one which had all the other officers on deck, those who had brawled with him in Gibraltar, grinning. It was the same grin that they had displayed when, out at sea, Captain Freemantle had called Pearce to his cabin and quietly roasted him for getting his officers involved in a brawl.

  ‘Good of you to join us, Mr Pearce’, as the clerk went over the side. ‘Now please lead the way into the boat.’

  That made John Pearce gulp, for he knew he was no master of the art of getting into an open boat in a running sea off a moving vessel, knew that he could very easily make a complete ass of himself. But there was no alternative; he was junior, he must go first. Looking over the side, he saw that the man ropes were well secured by the stanchions fitted to the timbers, that the cutter was bobbing around on what was not even remotely a rough sea, being held steady from the ship’s side by men who stood and swayed easily as the waves ran under the boat.

  He called to the coxswain, ‘You there, catch if you please,’ and with that threw his oilskin pouch into the man’s hands, for he had no notion of trying to descend with that to encumber him.

  ‘Please feel free to take your time, Mr Pearce. Admiral Lord Hood is, as I am sure you know, all patience.’

  The laughter was suppressed, but it was there. Captain Freemantle was not a shouter, but his biting sarcasm, his chief weapon of command, was more wounding. Pearce turned to face him and taking hold of the man ropes put a foot out to locate one of the battens that ran down the frigate’s side, his foot waving about uncertainly until it finally made contact. He had seen people do this, men used to the act, who leant back to a point where their bodies appeared near-horizontal, men who did not need to look down every second to see where their next foot was to go. Slowly his head disappeared, but not until he heard Freemantle quip.

  ‘Damn me, Mr Pearce, I hope you board an enemy quicker than you exit a friend.’

  It was not far to the cutter, ten feet when it crested a wave, fifteen in a trough, though it seemed a mile, and it was made dou
bly uncertain by the fact that the battens were wet, caked in salt, and slippery. Pearce knew he was too upright, but he lacked the confidence to ease backwards and let his arms hold him, so that it took him an age to actually get aboard. Sat in the thwarts, he saw Thomas Freemantle skip down with ease, till he took his place beside him.

  ‘I think coxswain, now that our guest is comfortable, we may cast off.’

  It was only when he was halfway across the gap between the huge bulk of HMS Victory and the insignificant-looking Tartar that he finally looked at Captain Freemantle. He saw that his jaw was set tight, and the slightly humorous look he normally wore was absent. He had heard enough in his week on the frigate to know that Lord Hood was a proper tartar himself, indeed he had been obliged to listen to endless puns of the ship’s name and admiral’s reputation. Odd then that he was quite relaxed, while the captain was clearly nervous.

  In the great cabin, the same Lord Hood was being subjected to a moan from the only man, it was said, who dared to address him so, the same fellow who had let Farmiloe eat Hotham’s apple.

  ‘Is I to fetch another leaf from the hold or what?’

  ‘Do be silent, Sims,’ growled Hood.

  The admiral’s steward ignored that, his voice becoming even more crabbed. ‘I has set the cook a dinner for twelve, and no sooner have I done that then you add another half dozen. Now, not content with landing me with a mid and a captain suddenly come up on the horizon as though they sniffed the grub, I am told there is two officers in the bugger’s boat, not the one. That there table will need resetting for the third time. No, if’n there be anyone else a comin’ let me know, an’ I’ll extend it.’

  ‘One of these days, Sims, I am going to extend your neck, which will have the added virtue of stilling your damned tongue.’

  The steward exited, tetchy still, his voice fading. ‘Should have stayed ashore, a man your age. Had everything, comfort of your own hearth and high office, an you goin’ an chuck it all up for a cruise.’

  Up above his head he could hear his dinner guests moving around, being entertained as they were in Captain Knight’s cabin, sipping their pre-prandial drinks. He should have gone there with them, and left that grouchy bugger Sims to get on with his tasks. Then he smiled; the man had been with him for three decades, they knew each other inside out. Many’s a time his steward had pointed out to him where he was doing wrong, something no one else, certainly not his inferior officers, seemed brave enough to contemplate. Command was a lonely station, for all the privileges. A honest voice was worth a mint, even if it did come from an untutored pest.

  Marine boots crashed outside the doorway, and his clerk appeared to announce, ‘Captain Freemantle, sir, and Lieutenant Pearce.’

  ‘Captain,’ Hood said, peering at Pearce, who was holding his oilskin pouch over his belly.

  ‘The lieutenant has the despatches from Gibraltar, sir, which he had given your clerk, as well as a set which has come from Downing Street.’

  ‘Indeed?’

  ‘To be given in to your hands only, sir,’ Pearce added. ‘Mr Pitt was most insistent.’

  ‘Then do that thing, Lieutenant,’ Hood replied, as they were passed over. The drum rolled out on the quarterdeck to announce dinner, and those feet above his head began to move. ‘I will read these later. You will, of course, join us for dinner.’

  ‘Much obliged, sir,’ said Freemantle, with palpable gratitude. Pearce said nothing; he was not so sure, looking at the table and the number of place settings, that an invitation was to be welcomed.

  Farmiloe, shaved again, got clean linen only because the dirty shirt he had to swap was so much better than that for which he exchanged it, a well washed and worn affair that had nothing left of cloth under the armpits. The villain who had dunned him, a fellow midshipman of the same size, had at least let him black his shoes, polish his buttons and brush the salt streaks out of his coat. The breeches would just have to do, and anyway they would be under the table. He was surprised to bump into to another mid from Brilliant, called Toby Burns, and that was when the drum roll caught him, so he had to run up to the maindeck and the admiral’s cabin. By the time he got there, half the guests were seated, and that got him a dark look from Hood, who indicated that he should take his place at the far end of the table next to the marine captain.

  That he did, looking down the snow-white cloth, covered in crystal and silverware, to the other end, where sat the Marseilles civilians, the leader of whom, the fellow called Rebequi, had been given a place of honour just past the admiral’s on the host’s right hand. There was a lieutenant talking to those citizens, obviously put there because he knew the language, and sideways on there was something familiar about his bearing.

  But it was not until he looked up the long table and their eyes met that Farmiloe felt real shock. Burns had been enough of a surprise, but now he was seeing, in a lieutenant’s uniform, dining at an admiral’s table, a man who only a few months before he had seen lashed to a grating.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Since the hour off Marseilles was the same in Toulon, the Barclays found themselves sitting down for dinner at the same time as those aboard HMS Victory, one either side of Contre-Admiral le Comte de Trogoff, albeit ashore and in a well appointed dining room at the quayside chateau that he used as his headquarters. The windows were shuttered to keep out the heat of the late afternoon sun but there was still sufficient light to sparkle off the plate and crystal glasses, as well as illuminate the dark portraits of previous incumbents studded around the walls. De Trogoff’s junior admiral, St Julien, was present, as well as numerous captains and marine officers. The difference from the meal happening at sea was the presence of ladies, not least Emily Barclay, dressed in her most becoming jade gown, her auburn hair piled high and held by a matching silk band. In the company of gallant French officers she had attracted a great deal of admiration, in all of which she took pleasure, much to the chagrin of her husband and those naval wives and mistresses who felt neglected. Ralph Barclay was doubly cross that he could see the attentiveness, but could only guess at what was being said in the way of compliments.

  Admiral de Trogoff, in his powdered wig and flabby, florid countenance, was too mature and rotund to make for much of a suitor, not that such impediments debarred him from the attempt, for he kissed Emily’s hand with a lavish, almost slavering courtesy. His second-in-command was a different kettle of fish altogether and Ralph Barclay examined him closely. Rear-Admiral Etienne St Julien was a darkly handsome cove with shiny, carefully curled hair worn in the latest revolutionary fashion, and he was quite unabashed in using his seniority to discourage any other officer who wished to pay court to Emily Barclay in the time before they actually sat down at table, seemingly equally adept at ignoring the furious looks he was getting from the lady who had accompanied him.

  Decency and language had obliged the host to place Captain d’Imbert on Ralph Barclay’s left, which was just as well, given that de Trogoff had little inclination to speak with him, more concerned to stop St Julien monopolising Emily to his right. St Julien’s paramour, on the far side of her escort, had no choice but to talk to her other neighbour, since her man was likewise engaged.

  ‘Your countrymen seem to have a deep interest in the opinions of my wife, monsieur.’ If d’Imbert picked up the pique in Ralph Barclay’s tone he did not respond to it, smiling as though such a thing was natural, which to him of course, was the case; it was French gentleman’s duty to pay court to beauty. ‘I fear an English flag officer would feel an obligation to converse equally with both his guests, rather than just one.’

  ‘I would take it as a compliment were I in your position, Captain Barclay.’

  ‘Would you indeed?’

  ‘It is mere gallantry, and of course rivalry, and I am obliged to add that the subject warrants the attention.’ The smile disappeared from his disease-scarred face. ‘How I wish it was ever the case, but I fear our pair of admirals would compete over a used dog bone.’ />
  Earlier conversations had established that le Baron d’Imbert was the senior captain in the fleet, a man who would have been an admiral himself by now if the Ministry of Marine in Paris was not overseen by Jacobins. Another officer of the old Marine Royale, he came from that strata of French society which had seen it as de rigueur to be competent in English, something he had perfected when serving as a young captain in the American Revolutionary War, so that his voice had in it the twang of the old colonies.

  ‘They do not see eye to eye?’ Ralph Barclay asked.

  D’Imbert smiled. ‘I believe that is what an Englishman would call understatement. I doubt they could agree on the hour if called upon to do so.’

  Ralph Barclay had a glass of wine halfway to his mouth, but it stopped there, for this hinted at proof of what Lutyens had said at the infirmary. ‘Would you feel it impertinent of me to enquire as to some of those differences?’

  ‘Not at all, Captain,’ d’Imbert replied, with a bitter tone. ‘Why be discrete about that which is common gossip in the markets and on the fish quay. Our friend St Julien yonder is a staunch republican, a committed supporter of the Revolution, a Jacobin and a creature of Paris, eager to get the fleet to sea and meet an enemy he suspects is on its way from England. Admiral de Trogoff, on the other hand, sees the fleet as a weapon to be preserved, that to lose it would be a disaster, and in contrast to St Julien, he has a conscience about his oath to his late sovereign as well as a deep distrust of those now running the country.’

  ‘Is he a royalist, then?’

  ‘That might be too deep an emotion for a man not given to such definition. Let us just say that he is uncomfortable serving those who presently hold power.’

  ‘So he does not hanker after a restoration?’

  ‘If I understand the word hanker correctly, which I admit I may not, then it describes his attitude very well. It does not, after all, suggest any sense of real engagement. But in his defence it needs to be pointed out the consequences of open disagreement with Paris would mean a great deal more than merely being superseded. He could lose his head.’