Enemies at Every Turn

by David Donachie

  ‘You will come to see this as one of the happiest decisions of your life.’ A wan smile was all he could hope for to that assertion. ‘I have things to attend to, the acquisition of charts and the like, as well as some seagoing clothing for Michael and I, for I have no notion of what is available at Buckler’s Hard. Besides, I need to know that Dundas has done all he said he would before we depart and I must order the carriages.’

  ‘So I have time?’

  ‘You have, Emily, time to pack.’

  ‘And you do not wish me to respond to my husband in any way?’

  ‘No! Let him stew in his own juice.’

  And what a juice that will be, he thought, when I get my responses to those letters sent to the Mediterranean. Once he had those he would know how to proceed and with luck they might well be available upon his return from the Vendée, a prospect that made him even more cheerful, especially if Emily’s nephew saw his way to telling the truth for a change.

  The collapse was inevitable – Toby Burns had struggled to sleep at night in his canvas tent, imagining what death or disfigurement he might suffer; if he did drop off, his dreams were even more terrifying. He had to face cannon fire all day every day under a blazing Corsican sun, which heated the land and made warm and suffocating every troubled night. He sweated in his cot and lived in terror in daylight, until finally he wilted under the sun’s glare, passing out from sheer exhaustion.

  When he came to, and he did that slowly, he was aboard HMS Agamemnon and there was a cool damp cloth bathing his face, the ship was rocking on a swell and the beams above his head, being painted bright white, made him wonder if he was in paradise.

  ‘So you’ve come round at last.’ The voice came from an indistinct face but it made him turn his head, slowly revealing the features of what must be one of the loblolly boys who aided the ship’s surgeon. ‘I shall call Mr Roxburgh presently to come and see you.’

  ‘Where am I?’ Toby croaked, not sure, when the reply came, if he was pleased or disappointed.

  By the time Roxburgh attended upon him he knew only too well where he was, in a sickbay full of wounded men, some groaning in pain, others too badly hurt to make a sound and, despite the odour of vinegar, there was an underlying smell of corrupted flesh. His first non-medical visitor was Lieutenant George Andrews, his arm in a sling and with words of thanks to one of the midshipmen who had ensured he had been seen to so quickly.

  ‘Did you have a clean shirt?’ Toby asked, for the want of anything else to say.

  ‘Oh yes, never go into a fight in dirty linen, Burns. Unclean clothes mean an unclean wound.’

  ‘I shall not, sir.’

  ‘Speaking of which, you have been in the same clothes for several days.’

  ‘Days?’

  ‘Oh yes, and not just manning the cannon, you have been comatose for a while, but I suggest we find you something clean before Captain Nelson’s inspection. Do I have your permission to raid your sea chest?’ That got a weak nod, given the last person Toby wanted to face was Nelson. ‘Anyway, enjoy the breeze, which will at least keep you cool.’

  They had rigged a scuttle sail to carry the sea breeze into the lower decks and he was grateful to feel it when there was a gust, not just for its cooling property but because it carried away with it the unpleasant odours. Roxburgh appeared for a second time and examined his tongue, before announcing he would need to see his stool.

  ‘Take a pot to the heads, now that you can walk, and fetch it back, laddie, for there’s more of a man’s ailments shown in his excretions than will ever appear on his extremities. Two minutes with that and I will know if you are fit to return to duty.’

  Those words struck Toby with his usual dread, until the surgeon added, ‘Mind, I will insist on light duties for a while; can’t have you pushing yourself too hard too soon.’

  The light was going when Nelson did his rounds – he had eaten his dinner and written orders for the next day – something he apparently carried out regularly, leaving Toby to wonder at a fellow who landed himself with such a tedious chore as visiting the sick. He spoke with each man who could respond, stood silently and in prayer over those who could not and was animate with the ambulant, even sharing a joke with a leg amputee about his prospects for a post as a ship’s cook.

  ‘Well, Mr Burns, what a to-do. You fell to exhaustion from excessive effort, I am told. Young sir, we share some ailments, for Roxburgh will tell you there is not an affliction in creation that does not seek out as a victim one Horatio Nelson. Colds, recurring fevers that I have had since my time in the Caribbean jungles, disordered bowels on a regular basis, I am a martyr to them all, and what can a doctor do?’ That got the surgeon a look. ‘Nothing, sir, that is what. It is I who have the cure and in a month of Sundays you will never guess what it is.’

  ‘No, sir,’ Toby replied weakly, though having had his own dinner of portable soup and fresh bread he was feeling quite recovered.

  ‘Action, Mr Burns, that is the cure. Battle, the mere smell of it restores me. Damn the quackery, I say.’

  ‘Except when you are low,’ Roxburgh growled. ‘Then it is “doctor this” and “doctor that” and no end to complaint. You’re worse than a woman!’

  They all do it, Toby thought, talk to him as if he was of no consequence. Even that amputee joked he might need a cook’s post himself one day, the way he was forever putting himself in danger as if it was any of his business.

  Nelson just laughed, a response to amuse all present.

  ‘Hard to know who is the enemy, Mr Burns, the doctors or the Jacobins, what?’

  ‘How goes the siege, sir?’

  ‘Be over in a day or two I shouldn’t wonder. Lord Hood has received a request from the mayor to send in another white flag, which signals acceptance.’ Nelson leant closer. ‘The French fear to fall into the hands of our Corsican friends, for which one cannot blame them. But just as we have the prize who should appear but the transports full of damned Foot Guards. When the white flag goes up, it will be redcoats marching in to Bastia, not blue.’

  ‘You do not seem angered by that, sir.’

  ‘Peeved would describe it, but it’s all one, boy, as long as we beat the devils, and we still have to take Calvi, which will be a much harder nut to crack. We will need you at your best for that, so get some rest.’

  What Nelson foresaw came to pass: with a flute band playing the redcoats marched into the citadel and a revived Toby Burns was there to see the tricolour come down and the twin flags of Great Britain and Corsica rise above the battlements. He was also witness, as was most of the fleet, to Lord Hood in a towering rage as news came from Toulon that the French had slipped out of their home port and Vice Admiral William Hotham had failed to intercept them.

  Slowly, as stores and equipment came aboard, HMS Semele had sunk lower in the water, her wide tumblehome disappearing strake by strake. This included the weight of her cannon, thirty-two-pounders on the gun deck, eighteens on the upper decks and nine-pounders on the quarterdeck and fo’c’sle including a quartet of carronades, turning her into what the navy required, a floating fortress with a massive weight of available shot.

  Just getting those huge guns aboard – the thirty-twos weighed three tons – was an education in leverage and rope work, given they could only be shipped through the gun ports, to be set directly on their wheeled trunnions. Lashed at both muzzle and pommel end they were lowered from a crane then lashed to a set of lines and pulleys to ease them inboard, a manoeuvre carried out with no haste given they were more than enough in weight to crush a man, the operation overseen by an anxious gunner.

  Once set, the cables needed to contain the massive recoil had to be fitted, and on all the decks what had been confusion was beginning to look like order as everything was stowed away as it should be. This made life a little harder for Charlie and Rufus, keen to stay out of sight, but fortunately for them the pair they feared most were not much given to parading around the decks; they were content to stay aft,
while the captain himself was more concerned about getting his good furniture aboard unscratched, as well as his copious personal stores.

  There was also the question of a cook and some proper servants, for Devenow would never be that, and it was with the wiles of years of service that he sought those types out, men who could actually reside in a naval port like Chatham and still avoid taking a ship that did not suit. They were not to be had up to haul on ropes or be messed about by petty officers.

  These men had skills a good captain wanted if he had any desire to impress, and it also served to attach to a man who was prosperous; a rich man meant rich pickings. Word went out, and knowing to the near penny how much Ralph Barclay had coming in prize money, the men he needed made their presence known and were fetched aboard.

  Now quite a wealthy man due to his prize-taking, Ralph Barclay could not but contrast this occasion with the commission he had received to command HMS Brilliant. After five years on half pay he had been hard-pressed to meet the needs of his cabin and that, compared to what he lived in now, had not been spacious.

  Servants had come from what he had aboard, his furniture had been of the lowest quality, his stores meagre by the standards he felt necessary to entertain his fellow captains as well as his subordinates, albeit, encouraged by other, better-off naval wives, his inexperienced Emily had overstretched the budget and felt for the first time his wrath at her spending.

  He had left behind in Frome a string of creditors – now all satisfied – many of whom had hammered at his door through the years on half pay. If he thought about that lack of a ship he would lay the blame squarely at the door of Sam Hood, who as the senior naval lord had controlled appointments. Barclay had been a client officer of Admiral Lord Rodney, a man Hood had seen as a rapacious opportunist. Rodney having expired and his influence lost, any officer attached to him would whistle for an appointment.

  Now, thanks to Hotham and the patronage of the Duke of Portland, he had a command he thought matched his position on the captains’ list. Pacing the carpet of his day cabin, now filled with highly polished furniture, set off by the light pouring through the casements, was a delight. He also had a dining cabin with a skylight, his own privy and sleeping cabin and, most pleasant of all, when it came to the masses of paperwork, which aboard the frigate he had been obliged to look after himself, he had Gherson.

  Such a man was necessary; everything had to be accounted for down to the last nail, endless lists and reports sent to the Navy and Victualling Boards, where they were pored over by pasty-faced clerks looking for discrepancies, and dealing with them and their requirements was as close to a war as it could get. They demanded payment for any perceived losses while ships’ officers insisted allowance be made for everything, from the depredations of rats to the need to condemn poor-quality beef and pork in an endless game of claim and counterclaim that never seemed to be settled.

  In the favour of the men at sea, the Navy Board and Admiralty clerks did not work, as they did aboard ship, all of the day. Rarely at their desks before ten of the morning, lunch was no short affair and was taken with wine, so that the afternoons, never long in duration in the first place, tended towards somnolence rather than activity; their pay was not dependent on the discovery of peculation, and the amount of paperwork was excessive, so a clever man could bury his losses as well as other things in the mass of detail.

  ‘I hope he has enough for Devenow’s gullet,’ Rufus said as pipes of wine were lifted on board from a whip at the yardarm, prior to being taken to the captain’s personal storeroom. ‘For he’ll be tapping them as soon as they’re laid down.’

  ‘There ain’t enough in creation for that throat,’ Charlie replied.

  The shout from the quarterdeck made them jump, which was wise given what the premier, Lieutenant Jackson, yelled. ‘Bosun’s mate, start those men, I will not have idle bodies on my deck.’

  The captain’s list of private orders, imparted to his lieutenants, had been passed down through petty officers and their mates, then on to leading hands and able seamen – instructions which had registered enough to make them cautious and evasive when it came to punishment. The poor sods that did not understand them, the pressed men and newly volunteered, suffered from an inability to see trouble coming or avoid it when it arose.

  Lengthy, what it told those who knew was that Ralph Barclay was going to run a very tight ship and one in which the grating was inevitable given the number of offences that could be committed which brought on that penalty. No one groused; it was to be seen if he would meet the need to be fair, and if he came it too high, well there were ways of telling even a mighty naval captain that it would not be borne.

  The pair had got their wish and they were part of Davy’s eight-man mess, all of them proper seamen who would combine to work as a team on one of the great cannon by which they took their food. They worked the day, which was hard, and slept through the night, which was bliss, for all the crowding, farting, snoring and moans of those who could not settle or were troubled by screaming dreams.

  All in all, it was as good as could be expected. They were in port so there were over a hundred women aboard, supposedly wives but in truth not, and the cost of their services was rarely coin: food, a bit of tobacco, a share of grog or some of their daily allowance of small beer. Illicit drink was fetched in from the Medway bumboats despite the efforts of the soldiers fetched ashore as marines to stop it, so there was much gaiety of an evening, with the fiddler never still. The food might have been monotonous, but it was regular and padded out by fresh greens.

  It would not last so they made the best of it, for in the great cabin the watch lists were being prepared, which would divide the men and rob them of a complete night’s rest, turning their slumbers to four on/four off, while in the Admiralty the question had already been posed to Ralph Barclay as to when HMS Semele would finally raise her anchor and comply with her orders to join the Channel Fleet of Admiral Lord Howe, which he would struggle to do before they weighed from Spithead.

  When the day of departure came, it was time to shift many of the women ashore and to conclude the last trades with the local floating market, then man the boats and warp the ship downriver, out past Upnor Castle and the Nore anchorage for a temporary wait for the arrival of a Thames pilot with the ships of the North Sea Fleet. They were not there long and finally the order came to raise sail.

  This sent the topmen aloft to let go of the topsails, which were sheeted home as men heaved the capstan round to haul the ship over the anchor and pluck it from the Thames mud. Surrounded by his officers, with the pilot conning the ship out into the main channel that would take them out to deep water, Ralph Barclay felt like a king.

  He might have been short on his complement by a hundred and fifty souls, but that mattered not; every vessel in the fleet was short-handed. He had his ship and he would work up the crew until they knew their tasks, and punish into knowledge those who were slow to respond. Now all he needed was a successful fleet action to cement his joy and the good news was that his commander, Lord Howe, had already sailed from Portsmouth and was a-sea hunting for the enemy.

  That was until he recalled he had received no reply from his wife and that brought on a black look that had everyone who caught sight of it wondering what they had done to displease the man who now ruled their lives.

  Information on naval ship movements came in quickly to the prize agent partnership of Ommanney & Druce. When Edward Druce heard that HMS Semele had weighed and was on its way to join the Channel Fleet, he saw a partial solution to a troubling quandary, having felt pressured on the subject of Cornelius Gherson. He had declined to tell Denby Carruthers what he knew about the fellow and his whereabouts; Ralph Barclay had taken valuable prizes and was a cherished client who had turned scrutiny as to how his affairs were handled over to his clerk.

  He had recognised the name the first time it was mentioned by Barclay; that was underscored when he had had the villain in his own office, for if this
was a first meeting who could mistake the description, and as for the man’s morality all doubt evaporated. Gherson had made it plain that he was not averse to accepting a bribe to persuade his master that whatever advice, sound or speculative, Ommanney & Druce proffered as to wise investments, it should be followed.

  He was now paying the price for not telling his wife’s brother right away that the swine had survived their plan to dispose of him in order to avoid a family scandal, yet only slowly had it occurred to him, after a visit from the troubled alderman, that he had become embroiled in a conspiracy the ramifications of which could lead anywhere. Thank the Lord the fellow was now out of reach.

  It was all very well for his brother-in-law to say the man must be found and disposed of, and properly this time – he seemed to think that with his connections Druce had a ready fund of assassins on tap; and just who was this Codge fellow who had also fallen foul of Denby Carruthers, to the extent he needed to be permanently silenced as well?

  Henry Dundas sat at a desk piled with papers: requests for preferment from any number of his fellow Scots, demands from political allies for their pet schemes to be brought forward or to fruition – all the business of parliamentary management which was his daily burden. He was not a man put off by the weight of such responsibilities, indeed he revelled in them, seeing himself as a large spider at the centre of a complex web, but in control of the whole.

  Between them, by the exercise of a massive amount of patronage combined with threats and blandishments, he and the First Lord of the Treasury, William Pitt, commanded the votes they needed in the House to pursue their aims – the war with France, the raising of monies through customs dues and various taxes on goods sold or items traded. As well as that, they had to keep happy the faction of the Whigs who supported the Tory government and kept at bay the opposition.