On a Making Tide

by David Donachie

  That made the boy drop his head. In his heart he knew what his uncle was working towards: that he should return to his Norfolk schooling and give up all thoughts of a naval career. To plead was alien to him, but necessary. His uncle having paused, he took the opportunity to do so. ‘If I have disappointed you, sir, I am truly sorry.’

  ‘Nephew,’ Suckling sighed, ‘I have no idea if you have disappointed me or not. All I do know is that since you came aboard my ship, matters have been at a stand.’

  ‘If I could be indulged with another chance, sir, I would not let you down.’

  ‘No more fights in the mid’s berth? No more running battles on the orlop deck?’

  He was tight-lipped as he replied, ‘No, sir.’

  ‘I find that hard to believe.’

  ‘Yet it is true, sir.’

  ‘It won’t do, Horace,’ Suckling said. ‘What would your mother want for you, boy?’

  That was like rubbing salt into his wound. He kept his eyes down as he said, ‘That I should do well, sir, both for myself and the honour of my family.’

  ‘A feeling that I share,’ Suckling replied, reaching for another of the letters on his desk. ‘I have here a note from a Mr John Rathbone. You will not know that he was a master’s mate aboard Dreadnought, and took part with me in the action off Cape Francis Viego. I would have most heartily recommended him for a commission if the war had continued.’

  Interest fought with despair as Nelson looked up, suddenly less sure of the direction in which this conversation was heading.

  ‘Rathbone now captains a merchantman, having been unable to find employment in the service. A damn fine seaman but beached in any terms, for want of interest. He wrote to me, with his compliments, to tell me he was about to set sail for the West Indies. I then dropped him a note asking, as a favour to me, if he would take you along with him. I have here his affirmative reply.’

  ‘Sir, I—’ the boy said, but no more words came quickly enough to interrupt his uncle’s brisk flow.

  ‘You’re no good to me as a lubber with no sea time. The service is awash with officers, including admirals, that haven’t been at sea for decades, and it is my view that a captain who cannot sail his own ship is a sad case. So you will go to the West Indies and, on that voyage, free from the bonds of naval discipline, will put yourself to learning your trade. While you are at sea you will remain on the books of HMS Triumph. And on your return, should you so wish it, you may resume your place.’

  His uncle Maurice glared at him now, as if determined to ensure that his nephew understood what was required. ‘I hope and pray that when you do so, it will be in a calmer state of mind than you have exhibited to date. For I warn you, any repeat of what has happened aboard Raisonable, and I will send you straight back to your father. Do I make myself clear?’

  He could have promised the fires of damnation, and they would have had no effect of the elation that suffused his nephew’s mind and body. The prospect laid out before him was nothing short of glorious, with the added advantage that it would bring his running feud to a close without loss of face. There was a twinge of conscience when he thought of the others, those he would leave behind, to face the wrath of Rivers without his leadership.

  They must look to their own resources, he thought, as he stood up, and looking at a point just above his uncle’s head he said in a clear crisp voice, ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  CHAPTER 6

  The journey back to London was different from that which had brought him to Chatham five months previously. Horatio Nelson sat on top of a coach in warm August sunlight instead of a March chill, with adventure on his horizon instead of worry. Dropped off at the north end of London Bridge, he hired a drayman to take his chest to the dock where his new ship lay.

  The Swanborough, some five hundred tons, was nothing like a navy vessel, not in size or in the way it was run. The crew was small, a mere dozen souls, and even if the Captain was ex-Navy, there was a limit to the order he could impose on a merchant ship. The deck lacked the pristine whiteness of a man-o’-war. Hen-coops and a pig-sty amidships, and numerous articles like barrels and boxes left lying around, only served to heighten the difference. But the main point of departure compared to a King’s ship was the behaviour of the men.

  Orders to warp the ship out from the wharves and moor her near the main channel were issued crisply, but were subject to a moment’s scrutiny before compliance, as if each man aboard wanted it known that he was obeying because the command was correct. John Rathbone had sailed as a merchant captain for a year so, as he explained to his new recruit, his initial surprise and frustration at such an attitude had worn off. A tall, raw faced man, with a fleshy nose, he had penetrating blue eyes and a warm deep voice.

  ‘It’s not the Navy, young fellow,’ he said, glancing over the side at the boat, which was paying out the mooring rope, ‘and maybe that’s just as well. There will be no showing away aboard this ship, with younkers having their brains smashed out on deck for want of a little knowledge about sail drill. You will dine with me tonight, then you will berth forward with the rest of the hands. I would not wish them to think you over indulged.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  Rathbone smiled down at him, his eyes making the journey from blond head to polished toe, taking in the blue coat and the snow-white breeches. ‘Mr Rathbone will do nicely, Mr Nelson, or Capt’n if you prefer it.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  Nelson registered his own stupidity and Rathbone laughed and patted him softly on the shoulder.

  The first mate, called Verner, was also Navy, a tattooed ex-topman who still wore his pigtail sewn with coloured threads. As a mark of office he wore a short blue mate’s jacket. He also sported a round black hat of tarred straw as stiff as brick. This he used in moments of unbearable frustration to belabour the backs of men he held to be ‘lubberly slow sods, no better than cows stuffed of milk’.

  Nelson dreaded dinner with the captain, in the way that all youth abhors the idea of adult company. But after a stiff opening, in which each response was dragged out of him, Rathbone began to talk of the time he had spent serving with Maurice Suckling. This including a retelling of the action that had made Nelson’s uncle’s name, the battle off the north coast of Hispaniola in the Caribbean. Cape Francis Viego had seen three British ships engaging and defeating a superior French force. Nelson had watched the battle fought on the dinner table, with knives and forks, on every subsequent anniversary. But he was still eager to hear more, from a new, non-family source.

  As Rathbone spoke, Nelson conjured up the scene in the cabin of the flagship. Outnumbered by a squadron of French ships the British admiral had asked his subordinates for their opinion. All three captains had stated, without reservation, that they should attack the enemy. This they did, driving them from the scene of battle, badly damaged, their pride chastened. In his imagination Horatio Nelson was one of those captains, the first to insist, with a rousing speech, that they force the French to do battle.

  Rathbone then began a rambling account of his uncle Maurice’s connections and the nexus of contacts an officer needed to prosper in the Navy. Horatio learned, between stifled yawns, that Captain Suckling was assiduous in the way he cultivated those with the power to advance his career, politicos as well as senior naval officers. Even without a ship he had been able to place relatives of both in the vessels of his employed friends. Rathbone named him as that rare creature, a man with few enemies. ‘For that, young fellow, is death to advancement. I’ve known many captains who ran crack ships stay on the beach for offending the wrong admiral. Your uncle never made that error. As he once said to me, since prominence in the service had nothing to do with ability, you never knew who was going to end up on the Board of Admiralty, deciding who was appointed and who remained on half pay. Best not to antagonise any of them if it could be avoided. His connections will stand you in good stead. As long as Captain Suckling is there to guide and protect you, you’ll never want for influe
nce.’

  Did Rathbone sense that his visitor was bored? He stood up or, rather, half-crouched under the low deck beams, which robbed the stern nature of his parting words of their force.

  ‘And now, young sir, you cease your previous self and become no more than a ship’s boy on the fair vessel Swanborough. I will ask you to remove your naval uniform, which I will keep here in my own cabin, and change into a set of ordinary seaman’s ducks. Then Mr Verner will issue you with a hammock and take you to your place on the maindeck, there to sling it. We shall not dine together again – at least not until you are ready to quit the ship at the end of the voyage. If the wind stays true, we sail on the ebb at first light.’

  There was a sense of ritual in the shedding of that blue midshipman’s coat, the feeling that he was surrendering something of value. But that could not compete with the excitement engendered by the thought that he was, at last, going to sea. There was a twinge of fear as well as the almost physical ache of stimulation, the sure knowledge that not every ship that set sail from the upper reaches of the Thames made a happy return. But no young mind could for long dwell on the idea of risk, when faced with the prospect of adventure.

  ‘Domestic service’ sounded grand Emma thought when ‘drudgery’ was a better word to describe the toil of blacking a stove and all the implements in the fireplace. Her knees hurt from kneeling on the flagstones and more of the blacking seemed to be on her than on the articles she had been set to clean.

  ‘Dirtier now than they ever were selling coal,’ she growled to herself, furiously. ‘I’d like to see my ma on her bloody knees doing this work, with rock-hard horsehair to bed down on of a night.’

  All those fine words her mother had mouthed seemed sour now, for all the praise she heaped on Emma’s employers. First impressions let Emma see the Thomases as fine, upstanding folk. First of all they lived in Chester, which was much more exciting than Hawarden. Mr Honorius Leigh Thomas was a noted surgeon, a member of a profession that had moved from the barbershop of old to become steadily more dignified. His wife, daughter of a local worthy and from a higher social class, was determined that in appearance the family should be elevated further. The proper number of servants was a must to attest to the place to which the family aspired to in society.

  Nothing would make Emma admit that it was her fault that she now had to perform these disagreeable tasks. Originally engaged as a nursemaid, she had enjoyed the prospect of taking care of Benjamin, the smallest of the Thomases’ seven-strong brood, a late child, and much cosseted. The family appeared friendly, Mrs Thomas a distant but formidable figure, who always managed to be close by when Emma made a mistake or used words of which she disapproved. The eldest daughter, Honoria, treated her in a friendly manner. Struck by Emma’s looks and her long auburn hair, Miss Thomas, an accomplished artist, had even asked her to sit for a drawing while the child was asleep.

  Boredom soon set in, though. The wet nurse, Mrs Carey, was so attached to her own child as well as the Thomas infant, that any surrender of duty, even those that didn’t fall to her, was unwelcome, and Emma found herself pushed to one side. The only thing that that did not extend to was fresh air, especially if the weather was in the least inclement. Mrs Carey’s definition of bad weather included too much sun, a hint of wind, lowering clouds as well as rain, which made going out impossible. The new nursery maid had little to do except take Benjamin for long walks in his small-wheeled carriage. Mrs Carey’s child was held to share her mother’s disposition, and stayed at home.

  On Thursdays the Chester market was like a magnet to Emma. It was a place of fond memories and familiar faces, from traders to urchins, folk with whom it was unnecessary to guard against offending by some misplaced word or expression. And she could act the customer, with means to buy certain things, and could recommend wares to her employers, which made her doubly welcome. All her old friends, even her own grandma, would bill and coo at little Benjamin. They liked to touch him, either stroking his cheek or offering a finger to his baby grip, which was held to bring an adult luck.

  ‘State of ’im,’ was the usual response when she got back, sometimes late for his feed. ‘How come you let all and sundry poke at him?’

  ‘They don’t poke at him,’ Emma replied, in a voice that was well above what was required of her station. Nursemaids did not argue with anyone. They took what was said to them and remained silent. ‘There’s nowt but affection in the way folk go on when they see him laying there smiling.’

  ‘That and dirt.’ The child was washed now, and feeding greedily from Mrs Carey’s breast. Her own baby daughter, two days older than Benjamin, had already been fed. ‘You wants to stay away from that there market. God knows what the child will pick up from the foul air round some of them stalls.’

  ‘Didn’t do me no harm. I used to fetch up there every market day with my nan.’

  ‘Happen you’re not genteel enough, then,’ snapped Mrs Carey. ‘But this bairn is.’

  ‘And your mite will be as well, I suppose.’

  Mrs Carey screwed up her face at a response that should never have come. ‘Not bred like this ’un, I grant you, but a cut above anyone carryin’ the name of Lyon.’

  Emma opened her mouth to deliver the requisite reply, but Mrs Carey snapped, ‘Mind your station, Emma Lyon. One more word out of you and I’ll be telling Mrs Thomas that we has a vacancy in this here nursery.’

  Intent on switching Benjamin from one breast to the other, Mrs Carey didn’t see Emma’s protruding tongue.

  The following week Tom Meehan joined her in her slow walk through the market. He had sprouted a few inches since her coal-selling days and most of the spots that had ravaged his cheeks had disappeared. He had a lively face, under dark curly hair, with cat-green eyes that testified to his Irish parentage. He had his hand in the baby carriage, and little Benjamin was tugging on it happily, gurgling away.

  ‘Honest to Christ, Tom, she’s a harridan.’

  ‘I should get back to working for your gran, Emma.’

  ‘Can’t Tom. My ma has said no to that by indenturing me. Nursery maid wouldn’t be bad if there was owt to do.’

  ‘Not for me. I get little chance to see you now when I used to get to have a word every day.’

  Given her sense of mischief, Emma couldn’t stop herself. ‘Not just a word, Tom Meehan.’ That made him blush to the roots of his hair. ‘Your knees must be worn bare the times you’ve crawled through the back hedgerow at the Steps.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re saying.’

  ‘Yes, you do, Tom Meehan! You and Bart used to follow me back every day, thinking I never knew, creeping up to look through my window.’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘I ain’t told no one.’

  ‘Nothing to tell,’ he insisted. ‘If anybody was like to look through your window it weren’t me.’

  ‘It were, and I reckoned you liked what you saw.’

  The reddened face changed from embarrassment to lechery. ‘What would I have saw?’

  Emma laughed, in a way that entertained the baby. ‘Me without so much as a stitch. Like a new-born babe.’

  ‘Not like that,’ protested Tom.

  ‘See? You’re owning up now.’

  ‘I ain’t,’ he replied, covering his renewed embarrassment by tickling Benjamin.

  ‘I caught you out. Just as I caught sight of you and Bart at my window the day my ma came home.’ He opened his mouth to renew his protest, but Emma cut him off. ‘And a dozen times following on from that. Now, you either own up or happen I’ll just inform someone that matters that you’re inclined to be a peeper.’

  The hand came out of the carriage so swiftly that young Benjamin’s face crumpled in surprise. ‘Christ, don’t do that Emma.’

  ‘Case you end up like Cain?’ ‘They took old Cain to ’Merica …,’ she sang, her lilting voice settling the child. ‘Just own up, Tom, and you can die old in Hawarden.’

  ‘All right. Weren’t no harm in it, and if y
ou knew and didn’t say you should have pulled the shutters to.’

  There was no doubting the truth of that. Her behaviour, passed on to the wrong ears, would be branded scandalous. Yet the memory did not induce shame, more a feeling of mastery.

  ‘Happen I didn’t want to, Tom,’ Emma replied coquettishly.

  ‘Fer certain I didn’t want you to. Not a night goes by I don’t close my eyes and see you afore I go to sleep.’

  ‘That be a long time to remember.’

  ‘Nor for me, Emma,’ Tom replied, his face flushed again, but not with embarrassment. ‘I can see it as clear as if it were an hour past.’

  ‘So you wouldn’t care for another look?’ Tom was too shocked to nod for a whole half minute, during which Emma Lyon laughed. ‘And here’s me thinking you’d grown, Tom.’

  ‘I’ve grown, Emma,’ he said emphatically, ‘and that’s something I could show you.’

  ‘Never,’ Emma pealed. ‘Benjamin there’s got more to show than you, I reckon.’

  ‘Come here,’ rasped Tom, taking her hand and dragging her into a narrow alleyway. Emma had to let go of the carriage, it being too wide to fit. What happened next was so swift she had no chance to fight against or even protest, as Tom took that same hand and pressed it into his groin. ‘Now tell me that’s no better than Ben there.’

  ‘Ten minutes?’ Emma snarled, as she dipped the brush into the blacking pot once more, transferring the mixture of tallow and soot to the metal of the stove. ‘No more than ten seconds was I in that alley with Tom, and never doing what Miss Thomas said I was.’

  ‘I had Mr Fort read it fer me,’ said Grandma Kidd. ‘Yer ma has found you a place in London.’

  The old lady wasn’t happy about that either. It was in her voice, that tone of mixed anger and sadness that her green-eyed girl would be going away, just like her own daughter, leaving her in the Steps under the burden of her family without benefit of relief. Her manner forced Emma to moderate the excitement she felt. Like everyone, she had heard tales of the Great Wen, of a city so large it was unimaginable, the whole place so teeming with noise and people it was like another world.