Flashman and the Emperor

by Robert Brightwell

  Cochrane beamed at the eventual compliment and I think the others took some comfort too, especially Beaurepaire and the other Brazilian officers who did not know their admiral well. For once I was telling the truth too. I had already decided the previous night with Clara that I could not abandon Cochrane, but I also knew that he truly did have the uncanny knack of finding some unexpected path to victory. I doubt he has fought a conventional naval battle in his life; he always has some twist up his sleeve that catches his enemy unawares. Mind you, even in my wildest dreams, I would never have imagined what did come to pass.

  I sat there smiling at the others as though I did not have a care in the world about what would follow, while inwardly my guts churned at once more being thrown into danger. Cochrane’s ingenuity and care of his men meant that invariably his victories were won cheaply. When we had captured that Spanish frigate, we had only lost three men killed. But God knows war is a random business. Whatever precautions are taken, if you put yourself in the way of flying cannon and musket balls, there is a chance you will get your fool head blown off.

  “Here we go again,” I muttered as I got up from the table. For by then I had lost count of the times, when despite my best endeavours, I had found myself pitched into a soup of dangers. I have often wondered what would happen if I opted for the truly quiet life and took holy orders in some distant monastery. Knowing my luck, the abbot would get drunk on communion wine and come at me with an axe.

  Putting aside any premonitions of danger, I joined the others in the hectic activities to prepare the fleet for sea. Sails were checked, patched or replaced. New cordage was run up into the rigging and supplies and stores were all examined. We had been impressed that the holds had been half full of food, water, powder and ammunition when we had first viewed the ship. But on closer inspection, many of the stores were not fit for use. This included half of the musket cartridges to be used by the marines, the paper for which had rotted in the damp. Some of the crates were so old they could have come over from Portugal with the royal family fifteen years before.

  If the Portuguese contingent among the crew had been resentful before, now that our departure to face their homeland was imminent, they became even more agitated. We lost a dozen men that first night when a cutter was rowed alongside us in the dead of night. The Portuguese sailors slipped down into it through one of the gun ports, while the officer of the watch was distracted by a small fire set in the galley.

  The following morning a bishop was rowed out to the flagship to give the sailors a blessing before our departure. Cochrane had little time for priests, but as the men fell to their knees and started crossing themselves, he thought it would do more harm than good to send the man away, especially as half of them already thought he was in league with the Devil.

  So all hands were called aft and the bishop, flanked by altar boys with incense burners and a man holding a cross, passed through them splashing holy water. Then to Cochrane’s mounting fury the cleric stood on the quarterdeck and delivered an impromptu sermon. Ostensibly to give God’s blessing on our voyage, it also managed to include a call for men to act according to their conscience and to remain loyal to the true faith and to commanders sanctified in God’s holy church. These last remarks were accompanied with a sidelong glance at Cochrane, which very firmly indicated that he did not fit the bill. After proselytizing like that, even the Brazilian contingent were glaring at Cochrane with suspicion, while the Portuguese muttered among themselves in near open rebellion.

  As the bishop led his little entourage back to the side, Cochrane grabbed his arm and snarled in barely restrained fury. “Where do you think you are going now?”

  “Why, to give God’s blessing to the other ships in your fleet,” the bishop smiled triumphantly. If he thought his holy office gave him any protection from the admiral’s rage, he was about to find out he was mistaken.

  “I’ll be damned if you are,” exploded Cochrane.

  “You are indeed already damned, Admiral,” sneered the bishop. “But your men are not and will welcome my blessing.”

  “If you go near another one of my ships,” growled Cochrane, “I will have a cannonball dropped through the bottom of your cutter and you can damn well swim for the shore. Then we will see who God favours.”

  “None of your men would dare do such a thing,” insisted the bishop. “You forget, Admiral, that this is a Catholic country and so are nearly all of your crews.”

  “Captain Crosbie,” called out Cochrane. “Have my barge lowered and fill it with good, Protestant, fast oarsman, quick as you can, please.” The bishop looked up in alarm as a grinning Crosbie ran to the main deck and started to give the necessary orders. Cochrane turned back to the bishop. “I swear that if you go near another of my vessels, I will take immense pleasure in sinking you myself. Now get off my flagship.”

  The cleric could not get off the Emperor fast enough after that. He pushed the altar boys aside, scurried to the entry port and scrambled down the steps to his waiting boat. As he sat in the stern waiting for the rest of his party to climb down, he glanced up the side of the flagship to see Cochrane scowling down at him. The admiral had picked up a twenty-four pound cannonball from one of the shot lockers and was now idly rolling it from one hand to the other.

  “To the jetty,” the bishop commanded as the boat pulled away. When the cutter was ten yards off the cleric looked around again to find Cochrane still watching him and holding the cannonball. I half expected the bishop to shout some admonishment then, but he thought better of it. After all, Cochrane still had thirty-five guns on the ship that were pointing in his direction. Given the mood he was in, I would not have ruled out him using some of them.

  If the feeling was not shared by the crew, I think at least all of Cochrane’s officers felt a sense of relief when we finally put to sea. We were away from the perfidious influence of the shore and could begin to get the crews into shape without further interference. I started to train the marines to use muskets in batches of thirty, as before. But after we lost half a dozen ramrods shot over the side, I reduced this to ten. That way, Lieutenant Moreira and I could watch them more closely. As well as musket drills, I had them remaking the rotten cartridges. They dried out the powder, ground out any lumps and weighed new charges. I had bought some books when in Rio and we broke those up for the paper. One of them was my replacement copy of Byron; I always like to have a volume to hand in case I meet a susceptible woman. It was good to see his drivel being put to another useful purpose.

  Cochrane and Crosbie attempted to break up the watches so that each contained equal numbers of Brazilian and Portuguese, along with a good quantity of British and American seamen. After the bishop’s intervention, I noticed a growing gulf between the Catholics and Protestants aboard. One night a large crucifix, with an ornately carved Jesus, was lashed to the main mast, facing the quarterdeck as though to ward off evil spirits. Cochrane allowed it to stay. He even asked for the carver to make himself known, as there was other work requiring his skills, but no one came forward.

  Brazilians resented taking orders from those with Portuguese loyalties and vice versa. Meanwhile, both contingents were jealous of the fact that the British and American sailors were better paid, although most would have to admit that they also had more skills and experience. On top of that, there were the one hundred and thirty former slaves as marines, who harboured their own grievances. So much conflict and resentment in such a confined space as a man-of-war was a recipe for disaster. Cochrane was not one for floggings and harsh discipline, but his patience was pushed hard. Every day there was at least one fight between crewmembers and during the first week two were stabbed.

  Crosbie organised regular gun drills and sails were trimmed far more than was normally necessary, in part to keep the men occupied. It did not always work, especially with my marines, as they had nothing to do with the running of the ship and there was limited space for other exercises. All had at least fired a musket, but it was imposs
ible to run fast reloading drills without losing ramrods. They would not be much use in battle beyond an initial volley, which would be of doubtful accuracy. In fact, they seemed of little use at all as they were as proud as Lucifer, refusing to join in other activities on the ship and still insisting that cleaning was the work of slaves and now beneath them.

  They say that idle hands are the Devil’s tools and so it proved late one afternoon. I was called to the marines’ mess deck after an altercation with one of the sailors, who had been swabbing the deck down. The man was being led away by his mates, covered in blood and squealing like a stuck pig.

  “Look at what your men have done!” his officer demanded as he drew back what was left of the man’s shirt to reveal a deep X-shaped cut on the man’s breast.

  “Get him to the surgeon,” I ordered. “Craig will soon have that stitched – it’s a neat enough cut.” As they took the man away, I walked into the middle of the mess until I was surrounded by a hundred and thirty dark and resentful faces, who were doubtless expecting me to deliver some kind of retribution.

  “This is the weapon, sir,” reported Lieutenant Moreira, pointing at a blood-stained machete lying on the floor. “They refuse to say who used it.”

  I picked up the machete and turned it over in my hands as an idea began to form. The handle was the most polished piece of wood I think I have seen. It was no lacquer or varnish that had smoothed it, but months if not years of hard toil in the fields, chopping sugar cane. Grooves had been cut in it for grip and when I studied the blade there was a slight curve, ground out over time by a sharpening wheel. I hefted the weapon in my hand. It was not balanced like a sword; to help it swing through the cane fields, most of the weight was at the end of the blade, which was much wider than at its hilt. I thought back to the wound on the man’s chest – it was such a neat cross that it could have been cut by a surgeon with a scalpel. Whoever had wielded this weapon to do it was undoubtedly an expert in its use.

  “I don’t want to know who used it,” I said regarding the silent faces around me. “But how many of you can use a machete as well as the man who owns this?” My enquiry was met with stony silence and so I sought out Mallee in the crowd and addressed him directly. “You are not normally reluctant to speak. So tell me, how many of you can wield a machete like the owner of this? It took some skill to make two such neat cuts without hitting bone and before the man could react.”

  Mallee, surveyed his comrades for guidance, but most were still sullenly staring at me and so he got little help there. He then turned back to me. “Most of us have worked in the plantations and know how to use the big knife.”

  I turned to Lieutenant Moreira. “It occurs to me that we have been going about this all wrong,” I told him. “We have been training these men to use our weapons, when perhaps we should have been encouraging them to use the weapons that they are already familiar with.” I thought it was a clever idea, but Moreira looked appalled.

  “Could I have a word with you in private?” he whispered and with that he steered me up onto the main deck where we could talk alone. “You cannot be serious about training the men to fight with swords or machetes, can you?”

  “Yes I am,” I replied, puzzled at his concern. “It is obvious that they will be far more effective with machetes than with muskets, at least until we can properly train them with firearms.”

  “But you don’t understand,” he whispered urgently. “There is nothing that frightens people here, both Brazilian and Portuguese, more than the thought of a slave revolt. Those men might be free now, but they have all the grievances of slaves. If you arm them with swords and machetes, then the rest of the crew will demand weapons too. Even if you take them ashore armed with blades, local plantations and towns will be in uproar. Their slaves do not have access to muskets, but all can get machetes. They will be fearful of us starting a rebellion. It will be much safer, sir, to restrict them to muskets and to continue to take the weapons away after we have finished training.”

  I stared out to sea while I considered my lieutenant’s advice. What he said made a lot of sense; the ship was a powder keg of tensions already and if all the crew were bristling with weapons, they were likely to do the work of the Portuguese fleet for them. If we ever made it to Salvador, there would be barely anyone left alive on board. On the other hand, I was all too aware that as their commander, my life might depend on the fighting ability of these former slaves. At the moment, with a musket, they were likely to be far more lethal swinging the butt of the weapon than shooting it. I did not really fancy my chances of going up against trained troops with men armed with little more than clubs.

  I turned and looked back down through the open grating to where some of the marines sat staring up at us, no doubt wondering what we were talking about. They were all fit and strong young men. Armed with blades and trained to use them in, say, a boarding party, they could make a real difference. I made up my mind. “Lieutenant, you are right, it would not be helpful to arm them now. But I do not want them sitting around doing nothing either. Go to the cooper and get some barrel staves. Have our men carve them into wooden swords, the size of a machete or cutlass. It is time that they learnt that fighting men is different to cutting sugar cane.”

  Chapter 14

  A week later and the wooden swords drew their first blood in anger. The entire fleet had heaved to and we were rocking gently in the swell, watching several cutters moving between the ships. Despite being three weeks at sea, the vessels had kept together well. The flagship at the front, with the frigate Piranga next in line, then the French in the Maria da Glória and the corvette Liberal bringing up the rear. Out on either beam were the two smaller ships, the brig Guirani and the schooner Real. Cochrane had summoned his captains aboard twice so far to discuss conditions on the ships. Each time they reported that while they were working hard to mould their crews together, there was still considerable friction on board.

  Things had come to a head as the sun came up that morning, when we had found a dead Portuguese crewman with his throat cut lying on the main deck. His murder was in retaliation for a Brazilian who had disappeared, probably dropped through a gun port, two nights previously. We were only a week away from Salvador so something had to be done to clamp down on the dissent. As each ship reported having a few key trouble-makers, Cochrane decided to have them clapped in irons and moved to different ships in the fleet, where hopefully they would have less influence. As a cutter scraped along our side, two Portuguese and a Brazilian were forced up through the entry port to stand on the deck. One of the Portuguese did not seem remotely cowed by the experience. On sight of Cochrane he raised his manacled hands and started yelling curses and insults at him.

  “We should have dropped that one over the side,” muttered Grenfell.

  “That would hardly have helped the harmony in my crew,” countered Crosbie. “I am losing enough over the side as it is.” He turned to me, “Have your men take them, will you, Flashman? Leave them chained in some storeroom at the bottom of the ship.”

  I nodded at the little party of marines standing behind the prisoners. They moved forward to grab the arms of the chained men, but the voluble one twisted away and must have glimpsed the wooden swords tucked into their belts. He gestured at them and laughed before saying something I did not catch. It must have been an insult, for one of the marines looked furious. Before anyone could stop him, he had whipped out the wooden sword and cracked the man so hard on the side of the head with it that we all winced in sympathy. Then for good measure, he kicked the man hard in the balls.

  The now unconscious protestor was picked up and dragged away, leaving a new bloodstain on the deck. Several of the sailors were indignant that a white sailor being attacked by a former slave was being tolerated by their admiral. If they were expecting Cochrane to intervene, however, they were destined to be disappointed.

  “Do I detect the influence of my former Danish bosun in your training of the marines, Flashman?” he asked wi
th a wry grin.

  “His methods may have come up,” I admitted. When I had first joined Cochrane’s ship many years ago, I had no idea how to defend myself. Erikson taught me things that had saved my life countless times since.

  “Will they be as enthusiastic attacking the enemy as they are assaulting my own crew?”

  “In truth, I think that less than half of them will actually fight,” I admitted. “The rest just joined to get papers confirming their freedom and see little difference between the Portuguese and Brazilians.”

  “Don’t they realise that their emperor is trying to abolish slavery?”

  “At least half of them had Brazilian masters in Rio; they probably do not believe that a leopard will change its spots that easily.”

  “And the ones who will fight?”

  “Most just want to kill plantation owners and overseers. They are not too concerned about their political loyalties.” I thought back to my early training sessions with the marines and the wooden weapons. The first had been a disaster as they had absolutely refused to make the swords from the barrel staves. They would not fight with children’s toys, one of them declared and the rest had stared at me sullenly in agreement. But I was not giving up that easily. I got the ship’s carpenter to make them for me and the next day I was back with a barrel of thirty wooden weapons.

  “We are not fighting with those,” repeated the man from the day before and once again he gathered nods of agreement from the rest.

  “Tell me,” I prompted. “If you had to compete with Portuguese soldiers or sailors at cutting sugar cane, who would cut the most?”