The Devil to Pay

by David Donachie

  It was no good sitting here by this open window and enjoying the cooling breeze on his skin and waiting till the appointed hour. He needed to get back aboard the ship to come to an informed decision, so quietly Pearce donned a fresh shirt and his breeches then, carrying his shoes and his hat, he tiptoed out of the room.

  There was no more activity aboard HMS Larcher than on the rest of the quay, a place so deserted Pearce could hear the crack of his own heels on the cobblestones. If he was not hot as he had been earlier in his broadcloth coat, it was still a damp-shirted individual who came aboard to no ceremony whatsoever; there was no whistling pipes or eager to oblige faces as there would have been once the heat went out of the sun.

  The lack of respect to his rank he cared for not a jot; what upset him was that he could get onto the deck and do as he wished without anyone noticing, in short it could be pilfered at will in a country where the light-fingered locals were particularly adept at thievery.

  ‘Where in the name of Lucifer is everyone!’

  A young hand who went by the nickname Todger, in response to that shout, sprung up from what amounted to the only shade available, a bolt of canvas slung over two of the ship’s cannon, where prior to this somnolence he had been in the process of cutting and stitching to turn it into a sail.

  ‘Weren’t asleep, your honour,’ Todger barked, knuckling his forehead, his young face deeply troubled.

  Pearce knew it to be a lie and the necessary rebuke was just about to be delivered when he recalled that he too had recently been abed and asleep. Todger, unlucky to be left on watch, was a man to whom he owed a slight obligation, a fellow who had been the first to feel his wrath on this commission. The offence in question had to do with the presence of Emily Barclay on a ship too small to properly accommodate her needs.

  Todger had regaled his mates with scabrous tale about the certain ability of a Portsmouth trollop called Black Cath to perform a less than salubrious act, which involved a certain bodily function added to the distance it could be projected. This was overheard by Emily, indeed on such a small deck it could be heard by everyone and clearly Todger had forgotten there was lady present and in earshot.

  Pearce had reacted badly on her behalf only to be reminded by the person who ought to be offended that she had no right to be aboard in the first place and then she had insisted he withdraw the punishment he had imposed. The memory of the incident and his own reaction still left his commander troubled and because of that he decided Todger was due some leeway.

  ‘Then you should have challenged me when I came up the gangplank.’

  ‘Didn’t see the need, Capt’n,’ the youngster replied, with palpable relief, ‘you bein’ who you is.’

  Not for the first time since his elevation, John Pearce was left thinking command was not easy; maybe it was for a tyrant like Ralph Barclay but not for him. He wanted an efficient ship as much as the next man but he could not abide the thought of an unhappy one, which had been the case on Barclay’s frigate. Mind, half the crew on Brilliant had been pressed men and disgruntled with it; Larcher was different, being manned by volunteers.

  There was balance to be struck here; Pearce did not want Todger crowing about getting away with being asleep or the way he had managed to lie his way out of trouble. For the offence of which he was guilty, dereliction of duty, a flogging, according to the Articles of War by which naval life was governed, was the appropriate punishment. It was also one John Pearce knew he lacked the will to impose. On the last occasion he had stopped Todger’s grog.

  ‘Then damn you, Todger, you better learn to use a bosun’s pipe and some way to greet an officer coming aboard that meets the bill.’

  The glance over his shoulder told Pearce that the rest of the men had come up from below, roused out by his yelling and he turned to face them. At the same time Dorling, the ship’s master, came striding up the gangplank, looking sheepish and slightly flushed, which had Pearce glancing towards the nearby buildings and wondering within which particular one he had been enjoying himself, given it must have been close enough to hear his angry demand.

  Had Dorling been bedding a local doxie or had he formed a more permanent attachment in the preceding three weeks, not difficult when tied up at the quayside and the man in charge rarely aboard? Again Pearce felt a stab of inadequacy; he was in command so he should know. It was irritation at his own lack of knowledge that had him speak more harshly and with more confidence than was merited, while also singularly failing to outline what had driven him to the conclusion he proposed.

  ‘Mr Dorling, it is my opinion we have rested here too long and that we have reached a point of diminishing returns. The natives are playing ducks and drakes with us and will, I suspect, happily do so while we decay. It is my notion that we should have those repairs we still require carried out in Naples.’

  Matthew Dorling was a young man, as befitted his position in such a small vessel, but he was also competent and would, Pearce was sure, rise to one day to become master of a ship-of-the-line. He was also the fellow who had saved his captain from more than one folly in the time they had spent together, having been at sea since he was a nipper and was thus the vastly more experienced seaman even before he studied to attain his present position. Pearce should have been asking his opinion not making his statement sound like a decision already arrived at.

  ‘She will sail like a tub. Anything in the nature of a blow and we’ll being clinging to what’s left as wreckage.’

  The doubt in the master’s voice was as obvious as the gentle murmur that came from a crew who could overhear every word. With his slung arm itching like the devil, his shirt soaked with sweat and his face red from the sheer heat of the day, John Pearce, who could now envisage no alternative, was not in the mood to have his aims thwarted by excessive caution.

  ‘The hull is sound?’ That got a nod. ‘We can rig a suit of canvas to give us enough to steer by?’

  ‘With respect, captain,’ Dorling responded, in a measured tone and with a direct look, ‘it is not a course I would adopt.’

  ‘Yet is it not one we are obliged to, Mr Dorling?’

  ‘This is a judgement that falls to you.’

  In the silence that followed, brief as it was, there was enough time to reflect on that reply, which stood in sharp contrast when set against the attitude Dorling had displayed in the past. Since taking over command, Pearce had enjoyed a relationship not only with the master but also the rest of the crew which was as close to friendly as such an association could be, based on the fact that he made no attempt to hide his lack of deep knowledge that went with a lifetime of naval service.

  Initially he had been given HMS Larcher as a temporary command, the fellow he had replaced being too ill to carry out his duties, while he was required to undertake a mission to the Vendée on behalf of Henry Dundas, presently Minister for War and William Pitt’s right-hand man. From what he could read and deduce, his predecessor had been a miserly sod that often, in the added role of ship’s purser, cheated his crew of pennies when supplying their needs as well as being an officer, though not a flogger, only too willing to punish for minor infractions. Pearce surmised that he must have come as something of a relief, for which he had been rewarded.

  He had relied on them to a man and they had not let him down, having sailed into danger more than once before the recent battle. Pearce had, since their first voyage together and the fading of the natural caution extended to a stranger, felt the crew to be fully with him. It was not like that now and such was apparent in the faces of the men behind Dorling.

  Even more to the point was the most pertinent fact: the master, having proffered his opinion, wanted no part in deciding how they should proceed. Would Dorling note in his log that it was Pearce who had advanced the notion of sailing to Naples, so that if matters went awry he would not share any opprobrium? He might even write in plain words his objections to such a plan.

  It was then, in what had become a brief locking of eyes, that J
ohn Pearce was assailed by the feeling that he had forfeited something very important since coming to Palermo and that led him to wonder at how it had come about. He had of course, been groggy himself by the time they tied up at the quay, not only nursing his arm but a sore head having been knocked out before the battle was finished, he knew not how.

  It had been several days before he became fully aware of the damage HMS Larcher had suffered, which was extensive and so were the casualties; she had only made harbour by being lashed to the Sandown Castle, the merchant vessel they had come across, the very ship carrying Emily Barclay, and the one threatened by those Barbary brigantines.

  Right at this moment he felt he was being challenged; leaving him to wonder later if it was a stubbornness to which he knew himself to be prone that had him issue the orders necessary to get the armed cutter ready to set sail, these delivered to a man who was the only person on board with the skill to make it so.

  Dorling kept his face expressionless as he said. ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  ‘Meanwhile,’ Pearce continued, in a confident voice loud enough to carry to all, ‘I will visit those still wounded and make sure they are fit enough to be accommodated back on board. It would be unfair that they should be left here.’

  As something designed to encourage it fell visibly flat; there were no smiles or nods of agreement, which had him look to the one face that due to the height of the owner stood out clearly and one in which he might be able to read a positive reaction. Michael O’Hagan towered over all those around him and in girth was as wide as any pair combined; he was also a man John Pearce held to be a friend.

  On his face, in some contrast to the rest, was a look that could only be described as quizzically amused. A swift look to either side of the Irishman picked out Charlie Taverner and Rufus Dommet, two others who had been pressed by Ralph Barclay at the same time as he and O’Hagan and if not as close to him as Michael, still fellows he felt he could rely on. Asked to describe their expression Pearce would have plumped for embarrassed.

  ‘O’Hagan, I wish you to accompany me.’

  ‘Capt’n,’ came the reply, with Pearce wondering if the rest would smoke his motives. He then added, in a deliberately cool tone. ‘Meanwhile, Mr Dorling, I need some indication of how long you feel you will need to get the ship ready for sea?’

  ‘Given there’s not much we can rig, we should be able, wind permitting, to cast off tomorrow morning if you are sure that it what you want, sir.’

  The way that ‘sir’ was delivered smacked of dissent, which rankled. ‘Then it is best you start work now.’

  Walking down the gangplank and back along the quay, even with the bulk of Michael O’Hagan at his rear, Pearce was sure he could physically feel the glares emanating from the deck; that last order had been delivered in a tone never before used. He was obliged to wait until he was sure he was out of earshot before he spoke and even then it was an over the shoulder hiss.

  ‘What in the name of creation is going on, Michael?’

  ‘Sure, John-boy, asking me won’t get you far.’ Pearce had turned into a shaded alleyway that cut him off from sight of Larcher so he was able to stop and face O’Hagan. ‘The boyos know we are close and go back a way together, same goes for Charlie and Rufus, so they don’t talk open when we are hard by.’

  ‘Talk about what, for all love?’

  ‘That we might be accursed.’

  ‘And how long has that been going on?’

  ‘It’s been strong since we tied up here, or happen after the burials.’

  ‘Michael, you are nobody’s fool.’

  O’Hagan paused, as if he was reluctant to speak, which was in itself unusual. In the time they had known each other, which included many an up and down for both, they had formed a bond that transcended mere friendship. Michael was rated as his servant, a task for which he was both physically and temperamentally unsuited. It was a position fitting for them both, given Pearce disliked the idea of one in the first place while Michael, though observing in public all the proper respect, was adept at making any point he thought needed airing.

  ‘Ten men dead, John-boy, and more wounded, in fight that many think you brought on for your own reasons …’

  In truth Pearce did not need Michael to spell out what was the cause; he had deep down sensed the reason that it was so while talking to Dorling, even if he had been reluctant to let it surface. Uncomfortable with the look on O’Hagan’s face he walked on, in his mind once more ranging over the event that had brought on such deaths. If he had not set off after the woman he loved, HMS Larcher would not have come anywhere near those Barbary pirates, there would have been no fight, no damage to ship and, most important, no casualties.

  The burials had been a sombre affair – how could they be anything else – ten of his own men and another pair from Sandown Castle, a priest there to say the correct words over a trio of papists, while he provided the necessary words over the others. If Michael was right he had been so wrapped up in his own thoughts and his duties to notice anything amiss, which was to his mind reprehensible.

  ‘If I was in the area for Emily, Michael, I was still obliged to intervene once I saw Sandown Castle under threat from those pirates. A British merchant vessel in trouble would expect aid.’

  ‘That’s not how some see it.’

  ‘Not all?’

  ‘It don’t take all, John-boy, just one or two jigging signs to set minds a’ fretting.’

  There was a nagging question in that and one John Pearce had avoided asking himself. The odds had been against Larcher from the very first sight of the enemy, they being better armed and faster sailing vessels than the armed cutter. Added to that the navy was quite clear about what a captain’s options were in a situation where the odds were so clearly stacked against him. He could accept or decline battle and the Admiralty would back such a decision if he chose the latter, given they hated to lose ships, especially by officers in search of glory.

  The truth was plain to him: he could not have stood off and let the merchantman take care of itself in a battle it could not win and that had nothing to do with Emily Barclay. He would have intervened anyway and as to losing respect with his crew, how much of that might he have forfeited for refusing to protect their fellow countrymen? As he strode along, Pearce could feel himself getting angry, given he was being damned both ways.

  ‘They are a tight bunch on Larcher, closer than most.’

  ‘Which, Michael, was an advantage.’

  ‘Happen you should wheedle out the ones stirring matters up.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Best ask Charlie that, John-boy, when it comes to eavesdropping there’s none better.’

  That got a grunt and as well as creating an unspoken question: Pearce had a feeling Michael was holding something back. As for Charlie Taverner, he was London-born, a one-time sharp who had worked the Strand as well as Covent Garden and, according to his own telling, a master of his craft, able to dun the wise out of their purse as well as the innocent. Pearce had good reason to doubt the truth of that; had he not first met Charlie in a place where he was hiding from the law?

  ‘How many would we be talking about?’

  ‘At a guess, half a dozen but you will have seen more are affected.’

  ‘Say he names the culprits, Michael, what then?’

  ‘You’d have to punish them and hard.’

  Pearce stopped once more, to look up at the Irishman. ‘I cannot do that, Michael. When we sail we do so as one. If I have lost something I need to regain then it must be done at sea.’

  ‘And will being at sea include your good lady?’

  ‘I cannot leave her behind.’

  ‘Sure, I’m bound to enquire if that is can’t or won’t?’

  ‘Both,’ Pearce snapped, ‘and maybe when we get to Naples the crew of Larcher will be shot of the both of us.’

  O’Hagan laid a gentle hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘I never thought you would go without her.’

>   ‘Do the crew resent her as much as they now seem to resent me?’

  Michael looked away as he responded to that, once more giving an impression of being evasive. ‘She’s not a snot-nosed blue coat like you are.’

  ‘Thank you for that,’ Pearce replied gloomily, as they entered the Lazaretto, their noses twitching at the strong smell of the vinegar used to keep the place clean. ‘Spoken like a true friend!’

  Michael’s laughter at the discomfort he had created echoed off the bare walls; Pearce knew that joshing him was game the Irishman enjoyed, though his merriment seemed loudly excessive for such a minor jest, the noise of it getting many a stern look from the nuns they passed. When they came to the room where the last four injured men were still accommodated, Michael suppressed his mirth so they would not witness it. He was punctilious when it came to never embarrassing, either in the presence of superiors or fellow tars, the man he was engaged to serve.

  ‘Gentlemen, do not stand,’ Pearce commanded as each rose at the sight of him, ‘you will be going back to the ship today, but be assured you will be accommodated in as much comfort as you enjoy here.’

  Which was bending the truth somewhat; the mere motion of a ship could, he thought, in at least one case cause a relapse, for the fellow was recovering from a wound to the chest that was manifested in wheezing breath. Had he been allowed to stand he would have struggled to do so, but the other three were ambulant and should be fine, albeit one required the use of a stick.

  ‘Thank the Lord fer that, your honour,’ said one who had his arm, like that of his commander, in a sling, ‘the vittels here is not fit for any decent man.’

  There was a temptation to reply with a rebuke but there was little point; the food, since they had come to Palermo, had been fresh and of good quality, as well as abundant, especially in the article of lemons, fish and corn. But it was typical of British tar to deride anything foreign, nourishment being the most particular followed by the need to drink wine instead of small beer. Nothing but beef and pork long in the barrel, as well as peas and duff, would fit their needs.