The Devil to Pay (John Pearce series)

by David Donachie

  ‘Sent to this ship and that,’ Charlie cut in, making that gesture with his hat, lifting it to reveal his blond crop before setting it back again that for him denoted the making of a serious point. ‘An’ that might be the fate for us too.’

  ‘What would please them,’ Michael added, ‘would be if they could transfer as a whole, even the warrants, for they have become used to each other.’

  ‘Which I cannot promise them,’ came the gloomy reply.

  ‘They was a crew afore the war, John. It would be hard for them to be parted.’

  ‘All I can do is ask.’

  ‘If you was to say right out that you would,’ Charlie insisted, ‘it would do wonders for the way you stand.’

  ‘Even if the chances are near to zero.’

  That got a grin from the one-time sharp, who had made his way in the world by yarn spinning. ‘Reckon a smile from one of the Larchers would cheer you, John. What matter if it turns out to be so much stuff?’

  ‘Would you accept, Charlie, that I am less comfortable with untruths than you?’

  ‘Sure, most folk are,’ Michael hooted.

  ‘Better a lie than an empty belly.’

  ‘A bit of labour might have kept it full.’

  ‘Toil is for dolts,’ came the sharp reply. Charlie only realised the effect of what he said just before he heard the O’Hagan growl.

  ‘Seem to recall there was a lot you went shy of Charlie, and not just vittels.’

  ‘There being a certain Rosie that you was sweet on,’ Rufus added, with a very obvious look of mischief. ‘Must have been hard to see her being charmed by Michael here.’

  ‘Enough,’ Pearce demanded, glaring at Rufus.

  That was an old dispute that should have been long laid to rest: handsome Charlie, when Pearce had first encountered him, had charm and no money, enough of the former to get this suddenly arrived and obviously weary stranger to stand several rounds of ale for him and his equally hard-up companions. Michael, who dug foundation ditches all day for good wages and seemingly drank all night, had what Charlie lacked and Rosie, of whom both were much enamoured, saw a need, coin to compensate her for her affections. It was the one thing that could, when raised, turn these two seeming companions into foes.

  ‘Pardon for the words, mate,’ Charlie said with real feeling. ‘Weren’t talking of you, of which you should have knowledge.’

  ‘You’ve a runaway tongue, Charlie,’ Michael replied, only partially mollified.

  ‘Speaking of what we was afore tomcat time,’ Rufus interjected gravely. ‘Do you reckon it wise to mislead the Larchers?’

  ‘Don’t know if youse noticed, Rufus,’ Charlie scoffed, ‘but we is Larchers. I ain’t saying John can bring it off, all I am saying is that he could try and if he said he would and did that would be no falsehood.’

  ‘An’ we could spread the word?’ Michael asked.

  The response from Charlie Taverner an empathic nod.

  ‘Be better,’ Rufus muttered, ‘than always disputing with them.’

  The fact of that, which he knew to be true even if he had never actually witnessed it, embarrassed Pearce; that these friends of his were obliged to defend him was something for which he had to be grateful. It was the need that brought him to the blush.

  ‘Well, we will know soon enough,’ he sighed, as he saw the captain’s steward approaching, which was enough to cause that sign to deepen.

  The man would tell him his dinner was about to be served, which would plunge him into another exchange of inanities with the master of the vessel, who not only had a lack of English or French, but who would have been a tiresome companion in any language, given his sole topic of conversation seemed to consist of the virtues of his exceptional wife as well as undoubted genius of his ten children.

  The channel between the Italian mainland and the islands of Sardinia and Corsica was a busy one and thus well patrolled by warships of both Naples and Britain, added to which the benign weather and the tedium of exchange with his host meant Pearce spent a lot of time on deck. It was there that he was approached by a party of the crew, half a dozen tars who for some reason had chosen Todger as their spokesman, probably because they reckoned him favoured by their captain.

  ‘Savin’ your presence, your honour, but we has come to ask for a favour.’

  Well aware, after his conversation with his friends, of what it must be, Pearce adopted a grave facial expression. ‘I hope you know that as of this moment I am in a poor position to grant anyone anything.’

  ‘It be more in the nature of a request,’ said Pardew, no longer hobbling with his stick.

  Silence fell as Pearce waited for one of them to continue, Todger finally giving a nervous knuckle to his forehead before speaking, while what came out was hesitant and mumbling, to which their officer listened with seeming interest, all the while wondering if Charlie Taverner had the right of it; that it was better to raise hopes than dash them.

  ‘Be assured that I feel I owe you to a man for the loss of the ship. If it is in my power to do what you ask I will bend every ounce of my being to that goal.’

  Todger smiled, Pardew nearly genuflected, the rest murmuring various expressions of gratitude, all of which combined to make John Pearce feel like a scrub.

  ‘Then we, for the rest of our shipmates, are charged to say that we is sorry for the way we went against you.’

  Some might mean it, others would say anything to get their way, but there was no point it stating that. ‘The best thing we can do with that matter is let it rest. Now would you oblige me by asking Mr Dorling, who I feel has been avoiding me since we departed Naples, to join me on deck.’

  ‘The warrants feel as we do, your honour,’ Todger insisted.

  ‘Where they go is not really in my gift or even that of the C-in-C. They are granted their warrants by the Navy Board.’

  Pearce wanted to speak to him on another matter entirely, being well aware of why Dorling was keeping a wide berth, a point he came to when the young master appeared.

  ‘I am aware that you disapproved of my decision to depart Palermo with HMS Larcher in the condition in which she existed.’ Dorling did not speak, but he would not catch Pearce’s eye. ‘I assume you noted your reservations in your log?’

  The response was a long time in coming. ‘Had to write what I held to be the truth, sir.’

  ‘Well you will be questioned both at my court martial and no doubt before by the Master of the Fleet. I can only advise you, Mr Dorling, to be honest, even if you have an inclination to protect me.’

  ‘I am minded to say we was in a hole, not getting from the locals what we needed and I know that Consul cove was tight with his purse.’

  ‘All I am saying, Mr Dorling, is do not put at risk your own career in an attempt to save mine.’

  ‘I won’t damn you if that’s what you reckon,’ he protested, showing animation for the very first time.

  Pearce smiled, really to put Dorling at ease. ‘Do you need to, given as far as good number of the crew is concerned, despite what they might now protest, I am damned already?’

  ‘If that will be all, sir,’ came the reply, from a fellow who had the good grace to look discomfited for his past attitude.

  ‘What I have predicted will all happen soon. Our captain tells me we are likely to round Cape Corse not long after dawn.’

  Which they did, sailing into the wide bight of San Fiorenzo Bay, a perfect anchorage for a large fleet of British warships determined to do battle with the French should they exit Toulon, something that would not happen unseen. There was an inshore squadron of frigates set to keep an eye out for them. John Pearce looked hard for HMS Victory and his heart was not lifted by the lack of her presence, for it meant Sam Hood, a man from whom he might just be able to beg a favour, was no longer in command.

  Merchant vessels being no strange sight, on his say-so they approached HMS Britannia without trouble, unaware of how, when Neapolitans put boats in the water to transport them
to the flagship, such activity caused a stir. Pearce was the first up the gangplank and through the entry port to find, and it was unusual, the captain of the flagship there in person to greet him, though there was no other ceremony, no marines as a guard of honour. The senior man’s face was a mask hiding what had to be deep curiosity.

  ‘Captain Holloway,’ Pearce said, lifting his hat, ‘I have to sadly report that HMS Larcher is lost.’

  ‘In action or to the elements?’

  ‘Action, sir, of a sort.’

  ‘Then I look forward to an account of it, once you have reported to Sir William.’ There was an expression on Holloway’s face then, one that said I do not wish you much in the way of joy in that encounter. ‘I will send to let him know of your arrival, meanwhile your surviving crew may avail themselves of any space that they can find aboard the flagship. I am sure the wardroom is at your disposal.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Lost his damned ship in action, did he?’ Hotham spat when he was told by Toomey who had arrived, how and why. ‘Yet saw fit to survive. Bad pennies, Toomey, did I not tell you so?’

  ‘Do you wish to deal with this yourself, sir?’

  That brought for the deep release of air. ‘I am hoist upon my own petard, am I not?’

  The man who held the position of captain of the fleet, in effect the executive officer who dealt with such matters, Rear Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, had gone home with Lord Hood, on leave and due to return by the end of the year. In his absence, Hotham had not put anyone in his place, which meant extra work for Toomey and his under clerk in examining the fleet logs. The Irishman took some comfort at that moment from what was a rare event: his employer taking responsibility for his own mistake.

  He was dying to ask him what plans he had but Toomey knew that if he did Hotham would demur and might even be angered by the question. Surely he would not go ahead without involving him! He dare not upset the man, not with another competent clerk, the fellow who had come from Victory, accommodated on the Orlop deck and in a position to replace him. Time to volunteer for extra labour.

  ‘If you wish me to do undertake a preliminary investigation, sir?’

  ‘Of course I do, Toomey,’ came the quick reply. ‘The less I have to deal with a jackanapes like Pearce the better. Thing is, should we raise the matter of Mrs Barclay?’

  After much speculation, it had been agreed that if Emily Barclay was in Leghorn at the same time as Pearce they must have come there together: it was therefore a logical assumption that when he sailed, she did so in company.

  ‘I would suggest, sir that would be unwise. Disreputable as his behaviour seems to have been it is a private matter.’

  Hotham nodded, though he was obviously not entirely convinced, before adding in a conspiratorial tone. ‘Damned awkward him no longer having a ship.’

  ‘How so, sir?’

  That got a tap on the side of the admiral’s nose. ‘Complicates my intentions, Toomey, but there will be a way to sort matters out.’

  ‘I hope so, sir,’ the clerk replied, silently damning the man. ‘I will interview Lieutenant Pearce, sir, and perhaps put forward a suitable date for his court martial.’

  Hotham turned, a gleam in his eye. ‘To which I will appoint the judges. I don’t care if he sunk a ship of the line, I’ll make sure they have his guts.’

  If Toomey wanted to know what had happened with Pearce and his ship he could have acquired the details from almost anyone aboard Britannia; the Larchers were not long between decks before they were charged to relate the story and it spread swiftly though the various decks and mess tables.

  John Pearce was obliged to do his own telling and that for an avidly listening wardroom, to then be assailed by a raft of questions once he had finished his account. Dorling was relating his account to the master of the flagship, as were Mr Bird and the Kempshall twins to their peers. By the time Toomey asked that Pearce to attend upon him the whole vessel, except himself, Captain Holloway and Admiral Hotham, knew the story.

  ‘I think I am obliged to explain what occurred to a fellow naval officer,’ Pearce said, fingering the letters he had just been given.

  ‘While the man who commands this fleet, Lieutenant,’ Toomey insisted, ‘has charged me to obtain the particulars, he being too burdened by duty to undertake the task himself.’

  Obliged to comply, Pearce spoke for an age, leaving nothing out and several times referring to his logs, making no bones that the decision to leave Naples had been his.

  ‘The court martial will want to know why?’

  ‘The whole port was abuzz with talk of privateers operating between the cities of Naples and Palermo.’ Pearce lied, ‘I admit to being tempted into seeking a prize before returning as I was ordered.’

  Toomey nodded and took the lie without comment – officers chasing after prizes was common enough – this while John Pearce was wondering what Dorling would have said in his log; there would be no mention of privateers. At the same time he was wondering why he had found it impossible to ask him.

  ‘As a result of being in the waters between Naples and Sicily we came across one of our countrymen, a merchant vessel, in dire need of aid from a pair of brigantines that proved to be from Barbary, which I gave gladly, for had I not done so she would have surely fallen to them.’

  ‘The minutiae, sir?’

  Recounted it sounded heroic, even if Pearce made no effort to render it so. He kept his voice flat and told of what happened as well as the result, making no mention of Emily Barclay, this while Toomey wrote various notes, only occasionally looking at Pearce when he felt the need to confirm the truth of what he was being told by meeting his eye.

  The clerk scratched away as Pearce recounted the tale; the sight of the enemy, the pursuit and the eventual outcome, none of which Hotham’s clerk responded to with even a flicker of emotion, the same when he related the loss of the ship; he appeared to a dry functionary to his fingertips yet the man he was questioning could not even begin to guess at what was going on in the Irishman’s mind for as he wrote, he was also testing ideas on what to propose to his admiral that would satisfy Hotham requirements yet might either stymie his stated intentions or solve the entire matter once and for all, a glimmer of a solution was beginning to emerge.

  ‘I will, of course, require your logs to show Admiral Hotham and he will no doubt wish to interview you himself.’

  ‘Meaning I will have to repeat everything I have already said to you?’

  ‘Not everything, Lieutenant,’ Toomey replied, producing a smile that stood in stark contrast to his previous dry demeanour. ‘I will précis it for him.’

  ‘I have one request to add to what I have said, not for myself but for the crew I had the honour to command.’

  ‘Go on.’

  Pearce looked hard at Toomey as he asked that they be permitted stay together, trying to see if it had any effect, not that he was obliged. The chief clerk merely advised him to return to the wardroom and await an instruction from the admiral, which Pearce did once he had checked that his men would be fed, this before being shipped to a transport, which doubled as a hospital ship. It was also a holding space for sailors without a ship of their own where, once he had seen the admiral, Pearce expected he would join them.

  That satisfied he went back to the wardroom, there to read his letters, one from Alexander Davidson telling him how close he was to exhausting his funds, the other from his lawyer Lucknor with news of the replies he had received to his enquiries, including a fair copy of the Burns letter, which had him swearing under his breath, it being a tissue of lies. He registered Lucknor’s doubt about the way it was composed and decided that was one little swine he would take pleasure in grilling.

  ‘Anyone here know where a Mister Toby Burns is serving?’

  The reply came from a marine captain. ‘As long as he’s not serving here aboard Britannia.’

  ‘I was not aware that he did,’ Pearce replied, sensing the disapproval in the way th
at had been said.

  ‘Gone now,’ the marine said, but in a manner that did not invite further enquiry.

  That did not bother Pearce; someone like Burns would not be hard to find.

  Toomey was with Hotham at the same time and, having told the tale of the loss of HMS Larcher he was now listening to the admiral’s thinking on the whole problem of Pearce, Barclay, Toby Burns and the London lawyer and getting himself into a real bind.

  ‘Sir William,’ Toomey replied, making no attempt to hide his exasperation. ‘I hope you see me as a confidant, a man in whom you can repose your trust, indeed have I not demonstrated that to be true on many occasions?’

  The response did not come with the alacrity the clerk would have liked, but then with Hotham it rarely did. ‘Yes, Toomey, you have.’

  ‘And it would not surprise you to find that I have thought upon the matter that presses on your mind?’ A low shake of the head and a look bordering on suspicion. ‘Then would it not serve to admit that two heads are better than one? I would therefore take it as a compliment, nay as a necessity that you appraise me of what it is you have in mind.’

  The admiral looked like a man being asked to hand over his purse to a highwayman. Indicating Toomey should come close, he spoke quietly and with some urgency for several minutes, outlining what he had had in mind for John Pearce, now thrown into doubt because he lacked a ship. Toomey’s head dropped to his chest as he listened.

  With a wit sharper than the man speaking he could see a number of definite flaws in what had been planned – it was all maybe this and perhaps that – but it had the merit of being action instead of passivity and that was welcome. At the very least the idea had the virtue of separating for some time the people Toomey knew to be a threat and if what Hotham had in mind turned out to be a dud, then it gave time for other avenues to be explored.

  As his employer continued, Toomey had one of those flashes of enlightenment that come upon a person only very rarely, in which a plan of action seems to arrive fully formed and he now interrupted his employer, which got him a glare, one he ignored. He began to speak rapidly, which reversed the previous physical positions until eventually Hotham was nodding.