An Awkward Commission (7 page)

The problem on
Weazel
was the master and commander who captained her, or rather his addiction to the bottle. A choleric-faced fellow called Benton, he seemed never to be really sober, even when he appeared briefly on deck of a morning to check that his ship was still in sight of the fleet. The man was rude by his very nature, seemingly incapable of saying anything praiseworthy, more inclined to nit-pick and complain, his comments just on the very edge of that which could be challenged as outright denigration. Digby’s predecessor had used what connections he had to get out from under Benton, something the present incumbent knew he probably lacked; had he possessed any worthwhile patrons, he would still be aboard Hotham’s flagship.

‘On the whole, I think I would prefer to be back in the frigate.’

‘Sir?’ asked the young midshipman standing close to him, a freckle-faced youth called Harbin, who made up in application for what he seemed to lack in brains.

Digby smiled, wondering if the boy thought him mad, talking to himself. ‘I was just ruminating, young feller, on the merits of sailing in a frigate as opposed to this vessel.’

‘
Weazel
is uncomfortably small, sir.’

‘Frigates are certainly not spacious, either, but they are rightly called the eyes of the fleet, and often away from the prying interference of very senior admirals. That has to be worth something.’

The lookout called down, ‘
Victory
signalling, your honour.’

Digby raised his glass to look at the flagship, seeing the various pennants run up, that followed by a puff of white
smoke from the signal gun. He needed no book to read them, having seen the flags before.

‘
Agamemnon
again,’ he said.

He swung the telescope round to look at the sixty-four, halfway down Hood’s main column, and the men running through the rigging, seeking to take in reefs in the sails to slow her down, for the problem for Captain Horatio Nelson was not to keep up with the fleet, but to sail slowly enough to keep proper station, for his ship was a real flyer. A crash of marine boots told Digby his captain was coming on deck, and he and the boy with him turned to raise their hats as Benton, his face dark-skinned over ruby-red, took a telescope from the rack, and swaying more than the ship, trained it over the rail.

‘I see our friend is entertaining us again,’ he said.

‘Sir.’

‘One wonders at Captain Nelson sometimes, if his travails are quite as serious as he makes out, given that he’s a man fond of attracting attention to himself. It would not surprise me to find he fails to keep station on purpose, just to ensure he is not forgotten. Still, Lord Hood seems content to indulge him. Personally, I think it a mistake to do so.’

There was a note of pique in that last remark, underlining several things; the first the rumour that relations between the two admirals were not of the best, the second that Benton was a partisan of Hotham, who was no doubt the man who had given him this sloop to command. Lastly that it was known that Lord Hood admired Nelson, a view not universally shared by every captain or admiral, and allowed him a latitude at captains’ conferences he rarely extended to others.

‘I went aboard
Agamemnon
with Admiral Hotham once, in Lisbon,’ Benton continued. ‘I cannot tell you of the state of the deck, nor the familiar way that his men address
him. He might as well be a common seaman himself. And the man is a light head in the article of drink. Two or three glasses and he is quite intoxicated.’

The way Benton said that, Digby suspected that he saw such inability to imbibe as a greater disgrace than an untidy deck or some over-familiarity from the lower deck. More interesting to him was the relationship between the two men who led the fleet, surely something which could influence its effectiveness. On arriving in Lisbon and finding Hotham still there, it soon became common knowledge that Lord Hood had used high words to demand to be told why. To his mind the fleet he was sent to command should have been on its way to Toulon well before the day it actually sailed, something it did as soon as he could issue his orders. Hotham’s protests were not only brushed aside, the man had been dressed down like the newest midshipman, and was boiling with indignation because of it, and it was said he had written home to complain. There was further delay at Cadiz, while Hood harried his Spanish allies and got them to sea.

So it was that HMS
Firefly
had found them not much beyond Gibraltar, with Captain Gould going aboard to give Admiral Lord Hood a message that went round every ship under his command in a day; that the enemy fleet had not been ready for sea as of ten days previously, but that it was working double tides to get yards crossed, sails hoisted and stores aboard.
Firefly
was ordered straight back to Toulon, with another sloop in attendance, with orders to ensure that the fleet was kept informed, especially if the French got any capital ships to sea, the whole incident inducing a palpable air of excitement throughout the fleet.

In calling aboard all senior officers to disseminate this information, it had been spread by the various barge crews as they returned to their ships. Likewise it was no secret, happily imparted to those same barge crews by the cabin
servants, that Nelson has asked to be sent ahead, with as many frigates as could be spared, to join HMS
Brilliant
and help keep the French fleet locked up, if necessary to fight them as they tried to clear their harbour. Hood had been quite amenable to the idea, but the Dons, lukewarm allies at best, more accustomed to fighting against King George’s Navy than sailing alongside, had been less enthusiastic, an attitude Hotham had apparently shared. In the face of so many objections, the idea had been dropped.

‘Well, Mr Digby, how are you enjoying service aboard my ship. A different kettle of fish from your previous commission, eh?’

Which one was the man talking about, frigate or flagship? And he had to admit to being surprised by the friendly tone, so very different to that Benton normally employed, which meant that it took Digby a second or two to answer, and robbed his reply of any sincerity.

‘Very much so, sir.’

The captain picked up the hesitation, and reverted to a tone instantly more familiar. His ruby-red cheeks deepened considerably. ‘Captain Barclay got rid of you, though, did he not?’

‘I’m sure he had his reasons, sir.’

‘Take care that I don’t discern the same ones, Mr Digby, whatever they are.’

With that, Benton left the deck, his gait betraying him just once as the swell showed a slight increase, causing him to stagger. Comparing the two captains, and on the principle of the lesser of two evils, Henry Digby could not but prefer Barclay. A hard, determined man, yes, but a competent sailor, if a touch impetuous and prize hungry. He, too, was a man with obvious faults, though over-indulgence in the bottle was not really one of them. For instance he found it too easy to be jealous, a fatal flaw in man who had a
young wife with him at sea. There had been that affair with the pressed seaman Pearce, for one, which had caused such disquiet amongst the crew. He could clearly recall himself being unhappy about the punishment, just as he could remember the way that Barclay’s wife had made her own displeasure plain.

It had proved to be a lesson in the limitations of command, and Digby had taken note of it. Not that Pearce was innocent in the matter of his own misfortune, for the fellow had an arrogance about him which was misplaced given his station. Idly he wondered where he was now; probably ashore, and damned glad to be so, but that did not last, for his thoughts quickly turned again to his old ship and his old commander, somewhere ahead, over the bowsprit, patrolling impatiently while waiting for the fleet to arrive.

John Pearce was sailing the English Channel once more, this time trying to learn as much as he could from the
roly-poly
owner of the postal brig. The captain of the
Lorne
was someone to whom he had taken an instant liking; from the moment he had come aboard he had been in receipt of nothing but kindness and consideration, which extended to the best available accommodation, a fuss about his comfort plus the provision of food and drink. Hailing from the Irish province of Ulster, Captain McGann was easy to like; everything that happened for good or seeming ill made him laugh, and that was wont to affect his whole being. His shoulders shook and his substantial belly heaved.

Things were bound to be amiss with any group of seamen who had spent a last night ashore; there were sore heads a’plenty from the young and unattached, allied to regret from those who loved their wives, and impatience from those glad to be free once more from domestic ties. Their captain was the very antithesis of those Pearce had served before, more like a father to the men who crewed his ship than a captain, a feeling that they returned in full measure.

A tactile man, dressed in the same manner as his crew, McGann was more inclined to cradle his sailors with a friendly arm than chastise them. It soon transpired – a fact Pearce learnt while the Blue Peter was still flying – that every one of them had sailed with him before; they knew his ways
and he knew theirs, as well as their families, wives, children and even the mothers of the younger crew.
Lorne
was that rare thing, a happy ship, a truth made doubly obvious before they had cleared St Helens. The men of the brig went about their tasks without so much as a shouted order, for their captain spoke quietly, and followed every request to shift sail or haul on a rope with a sincerely added ‘please’.

From those same hands – a talkative, friendly lot – Pearce learnt the respect in which McGann was held, told by each one to whom he spoke that their master was a man who knew the ways of the sea better than anyone afloat, and was at the
self-same
time a complete mandrill ashore, for he drank too much and had a conviction when inebriated, with no basis whatever in truth, that any woman who came within his line of vision was madly in love with him, and determined to drag him to the altar.

‘Should you go ashore with him, sir,’ whispered one older hand, ‘which is likely at Gibraltar, then be like we is, prepared to either drag him away from some indiscretion, or fight off the beaux of whichever women with whom the silly sod has taken a liberty.’

‘Yet he does not drink at sea? He declined to join me in more than one glass at our first meal.’

‘Never, sir. He respects the sea too much and as he says, he is damned if he will surrender any of us up to its tempers for not being as sharp as is needed.’

To take such a liking to anyone so quickly was a strange sensation for Pearce, hardly surprising given the life he had lived. Too many times, growing up, he had trusted someone only to be disappointed, which had made him reticent in meeting people for the first time. Yet he had felt the need to be completely honest right off, with the captain hinting that having a ‘capital naval fellow’ on his deck would be good for all sorts of things, not least in allowing them to
compare the different ways of rigging and sailing.

‘You will find me a sad example of a naval officer, Mr McGann,’ Pearce said, feeling the movement of the ship on his knees as they moved out into the Spithead anchorage. ‘The uniform is a sham.’ The response to his candour was that disarming, body-shaking laugh. Encouraged thus, Pearce told his tale, as well as his purpose, told how he had come by his rank, though he played down the action from which it had resulted, praising instead those who had fought with him.

‘So you see, Mr McGann, it is not sea service but a stroke of luck and the aid of others that has got me to where I am.’

McGann swung the ship’s wheel a fraction, reacting to a change in the current as it ran in from deeper water. The wind strengthened too, which called for a slight trimming of the yards.

‘It is a singular thing, sir, such elevation, though I have a’heard of it happening afore, an’ from the same king who showed favour to you. I know, too, that it is not given for light work, but for acts quite exceptional in the fighting line.’ The man’s chest and substantial belly heaved as he laughed once more, his eyes twinkling as he added, ‘Mr Pearce, I suspect you are guilty of modesty.’

‘It is some consolation to me to know that I am not too singular. The charge of modesty I deny.’

‘Deny away, sir, for to do so gives you credit.’

‘Needles coming up on the starboard beam, Capt’n,’ called a hand who was aloft in the rigging, changing a block and so could see well ahead over the bowsprit.

McGann called back ‘Why thank ’e, Harold, much obliged,’ before speaking softly to Pearce. ‘A fine lad that, as they all are. His father and I sailed together when I was his age, and we was true mates.’

‘What brought you to this?’

‘Good fortune, Mr Pearce, which has stayed true, not least in the willingness of those I know to stick with me, and those who knew me as a lad to teach me the ways of the sea and how to make my way around it. Sailed to the Carnatic and the Bay of Bengal more’n once, and I was allowed to indulge in a little private trade, buying spices, gold trinkets and the like that I could sell on my return. Husbandry gave me enough to put down a sum on a boat, and I engaged myself to the postal service when it was still a sinecure. By the time Billy Pitt bought it in, I had the
Lorne
and was set up to sign for regular service, Gibraltar and back, with the government. I was also lucky, as you were not, never to be taken out of a ship or ashore in a time of war, and so never suffered the indignity of being a pressed seaman.’

‘Indignity describes it, Captain McGann, though it gives me no pleasure to say I have known worse.’ Responding to the enquiring look, Pearce said, ‘In time, sir, we will be in each others’ company long enough for me to tell you all.’

‘Have it as you will. I will not press you.’

The pun on the word press brought forth another hearty laugh, one so intense that the captain had to ask Pearce to hold the wheel steady while he recovered. With that in his hand, and feeling that the ship had a life through it, Pearce was once more reminded of the sham of his commission, and the haunting fear that once in the Mediterranean, he might be offered a place aboard a ship which he might have to accept just to stay on the station.

‘I may press you, sir, for as I have already told you, my ignorance of the sea is great.’

‘A capital play on the word, sir,’ exclaimed McGann, heaving once more, and wheezing as he sought air. ‘Capital indeed.’

‘But true.’

‘You wish to know more?’

‘It matters not what I wish, it is more what I need.’

Short by a head though he was, McGann nevertheless managed to get an arm around Pearce’s shoulder. ‘Then this, sir, shall be your school for the time you are aboard, and I take leave to say you could find none finer, for there is not a hand serving on this vessel that would not be pleased to instruct, as am I. But, recall this, if you want to stay off the deck and out of wind, water and cold, that is your privilege.’

Pearce hardly hesitated a second. ‘I would be happy to be your pupil, sir.’

‘Then I too am happy. I ain’t never taught a man ’owt, but that I have learnt something in return, sir. I look forward to having you on my deck, but just as much I anticipate with pleasure the conversation we will have when we are below.’

Lorne
was constructed for speed through the water. She was of narrow build, carrying as few stores as possible, no cargo and damn stability, for the contract McGann had was not one to allow him much in the way of double ventures. His task was to get the mails to Gibraltar and back as speedily as possible, avoiding any attempt to intercept them now the nation was again at war with France.

‘Twelve days is around the norm for the passage, though I have had it take twice that time in the winter months. Made it in under five days, one trip. Never known such a wind oblige for the whole journey. Blew hard and consistent from the north-east to push us down the Channel, then swung round to a fine, strong north-westerly off the Lizard so that the lee rail was never clear of the sea all the way south, with every man jack up from below to take pleasure in flying. Fourteen knots was our best cast of the log. Fourteen knots, Mr Pearce, have you ever heard the like!’

According to McGann, they were doing very well at the moment under a bright blue sky, a warm late-July sun and an gentle easterly breeze right astern. The log had run off six knots on the last cast, Pearce sure of this for it had been himself in the chains doing the casting, with the man accustomed to the task there to make sure he learnt to do it right and did not risk drowning by too much enthusiasm. Prior to that he had been aloft helping to run out the booms for the skysails, then going out onto those booms to haul the sails aloft, lashing them on and then loosing the ties and letting them fall, bare soles bouncing in the footropes, his shirt billowing out on the breeze, constantly admonished by the man next to him to, ‘Clap on, sir, clap on. Allas keep one hand for the boat.’

And it had been a pleasure, so different from when he been aloft on either
Griffin
or
Brilliant
, different because it was voluntary, the pleasure doubled by making a real effort to do the tasks well, even more pleased by the way he was cheerfully egged on by the men with whom he was working. Those same fellows could not tie a knot or look to splice a rope without calling out to show how it was done. They could not haul a fall through a block without explaining why one line was on a single block, when another, for its weight, needed the gearing of a double. And he hauled with them when hauling was required, the tar on his palms like a badge rather then the disgrace it had previously been. John Pearce was enjoying himself.

Soon they were past the Lizard and, in darkness, they had made their southing to run well clear of Ushant. The weather was good, the sea steady, a long and comfortable swell that hardly disturbed the plates on McGann’s dinner table. Their course was set and a trusty pair were on the wheel, with half the crew standing by as a watch, for like the Navy a postal packet did not shorten sail at night. Earlier
that same day, he had been instructing Pearce in the use of a sextant, expressing no surprise that he had no prior knowledge of an instrument he owned, albeit one that had suffered from use in hands that had clearly, more than once, dropped it.

‘Now once you got the sun reflected a’right, bring it down to the horizon, waving a fraction left an right, which tells you when it touches, and stops it dipping below the horizon.’

Doing that twice a day was something Pearce mastered; what he found impossible were the calculations necessary to make sure the time was correct, this before Captain McGann could adjust one of his chronometers, the difference between the one set to Greenwich time and the result giving the ship’s position. Night-time sightings were a mystery and likely to remain so, ‘Shooting Stars’, as the his mentor called it, with seven different celestial objects to aim at, and the obscurity of something called a nominal point to commence matters.

McGann, who would not suffer another soul to touch them, took a cloth and gently rubbed one of his beautiful clocks. ‘It be hard to think of life without them now, yet it is not more’n thirty years since Harrison proved their worth. Many’s a sailor was lost and went to Davy Jones without them. And here we are running past the Scillies. Did you ever hear of an admiral called Sir Cloudsley Shovell?’

Pearce smiled and shook his head at the outlandish name. He had learnt very early on that McGann loved to tell a tale – what sailor did not – just as he had learnt that, unlike a lot of folk he knew how to do it without boring the breeches off the listener.

‘This be in the year 1707 and it goes to show the worth of Harrison’s invention, which came about as a result, though it took time, if you’ll forgive the pun. Old Shovell was bringin’ a squadron of ships back home, his course set
for the Channel and Portsmouth, when one of his men told him he was sailing a risky course, that he would run foul of the Scilly Isles if he kept on. Bein’ a choleric bugger, and sure of hisself, Shovell pulled a strop and had flogged the man that dared to question his orders. He then held to the course he had set and ran half his fleet on to the lee shore and drownded ’em. Thousands of sailors lost on a man’s temper. They say he survived and was murdered for his ring, which serves him right.’

There was a moment when both men contemplated that, Pearce having an uncomfortable memory of struggling in a raging sea that was hammering a rock-strewn shore. It was not a pleasant image.

‘I feel safe in the notion that I can master the instrument, Mr McGann, and the clocks present no problem at all, for a careful child could adjust those, but I fear the mathematics will stump me.’

That was no lie. His father had sought to teach him mathematics, but was only competent in the basics of adding, subtraction and multiplication. His Parisian tutor, the Abbé Morlant, with whom he had studied for two years, was steeped in the Classics, and knew nothing about such matters as geometry and spherical trigonometry, probably seeing them, though he was no zealot, as the work of the devil. Pearce continued to assert that, however interesting it was to be shown something new and instructed in matters outside his experience, it was only curiosity that made him attend to it; he had no notion to ever use it, a declaration at which McGann was quick to scoff.

‘But you ain’t got my drift, Mr Pearce. I am sayin’ such things is best left to those that are brought up to it.’ Responding to Pearce’s enquiring look he shook with humour once more. ‘Do you think all your braided officers know about navigation? Do you think they are all sure
which sails to set aloft to get the best out of a ship or where the rocks lie on a lee shore? Who is it that stows the hold and trims the barky so she sails smooth. It ain’t the captain that’s for certain.’