Under Enemy Colors (13 page)

“You sent for me, Mr Hayden?”

“I did, Aldrich.” Hayden was not quite sure how to start this interview, and for a moment regarded the sailor, too tall for the low deckhead, stooped in the open cabin door. “You are a prodigious reader, I am told?”

“Aye, sir.”

“Where did you learn it?”

“From the parson upon the
Russell
, sir. I was his servant boy and he taught me reading and proper speech.”

“Is it true you have read all the doctor’s medical books, for so he told me?”

“Yes, sir. They were hard sailing, Mr Hayden, but I doubled all the capes of anatomy and navigated the perils of physic and bleeding.”

“Is that your desire, then, to be a surgeon’s mate?”

Aldrich looked a bit surprised by the question. “No, sir. I once assisted Dr Griffiths with an amputation when his mate was ill…It was a sight I hope never to witness again.” The man made a face.

Hayden almost smiled. “Yes, I don’t think it would be my calling, either. But you could be a bosun’s mate and no doubt a bosun in short order.”

“With all respect, Mr Hayden, I should never want a position where I might have to beat or flog my fellows.” He paused a second. “Nor is it my desire to have authority over others. Mr Barthe once offered to put my name forward for master’s mate, but I told him I could not accept.”

“All men are created equal?”

Aldrich nodded tentatively.

“Which brings me to these…” Hayden retrieved the pamphlets, which he had hidden a moment before. “Wickham was showing me some books he had from you, and these were lodged among them.”

Aldrich looked suddenly apprehensive, his mouth forming a tight line and a crease appearing between his eyebrows.

“This man, Thomas Paine, has recently been convicted of seditious libel and outlawed from England. I do not want to know if these are your property, or even how they came to be among Wickham’s books, which, I realize, have been read by numerous men aboard. I have only one question: are you party to any subversion of, or mutinous designs upon, this ship or her officers?”

Even in the warm lamplight Aldrich appeared ghostly pale, stooped in the doorway. For a moment he regarded the cabin sole, and then raised his head and met Hayden’s eyes.

“I’m not a mutineer, sir.”

Hayden felt a little wave of relief. There was something in Aldrich’s tone, in the way he carried himself, that would not brook disbelief. “No, I don’t expect you are…”

“I must, to be fair, tell you, Mr Hayden, that I do believe even a lowly sailor has the right to protest his treatment if it is manifestly unjust.”

Hayden closed his eyes. “Please tell me that it is not you, Aldrich, circulating this petition.”

Aldrich lifted his head a little until it made gentle contact with the deckhead.

“I withdraw that question,” Hayden enjoined quickly. “Do not answer it. I hope, however, that this crisis has passed and there will be no trouble when next we weigh…”

“I doubt there will, sir. The men seem resigned to their situation, if no less resentful.”

“There is no petition circulating presently?”

Aldrich hesitated, a struggle clear upon his face. “None presently,” he said under his breath.

“Aldrich, I must caution you: the Jacks esteem you greatly, and if you go about promoting the ideas of Mr Paine or circulating petitions it could put you in grave danger. More than one of the officers believe that Penrith was murdered by subversive elements aboard the
Themis
. A pamphlet like this could get a man flogged—or worse.”

“I do not preach mutiny, sir. But only common sense. Our own ship proves the point: you are the most capable officer aboard, yet you are not the captain. Where is the sense in that, sir?”

Hayden raised a hand. “Mr Aldrich, if you please, sir! There is talk that I cannot countenance as an officer of His Majesty’s Navy.”

Aldrich gave a quick bow of the head. “I’m sorry, sir. I misspoke myself.”

For a moment Hayden was at a loss for what to say. “If you do not desire a master’s warrant, then what is your wish?”

A look of almost happy contentment came over the man’s face. “When this war is over, and I pray it will be soon, I would, upon my discharge, find a ship and work my passage to America, sir. There I might become a farmer, Mr Hayden, or a lawyer…” He shrugged, a little embarrassed at this fancy.

“Have you been to America, Aldrich?”

“Not upon the land, sir, but in the harbour of New York.” The man’s eyes shone a little, as though he spoke of a sweetheart.

Hayden hesitated. “Well, I hope you land there one day. Until then, I might caution you to show great prudence. I fear there might be trouble aboard the
Themis
yet, and I would regret it most profoundly if you in some way were caught up in it.”

Aldrich nodded.

“You may return to your duties.”

Aldrich put a knuckle to his brow. “Thank you, sir.”

Hayden sat at his little writing-table, staring at the letter he had begun. What a ship I am on, he thought. The captain is a coward and tyrant. The midshipmen are all parliamentarians, and the most able seaman is a
philosophe
. And someone aboard is a murderer. He stoppered his ink bottle and cleaned his quill. He was not sure how to explain all that to the First Secretary. He was not sure how to explain it to himself.

A knock on the gunroom door, and a boy put his head in. “If you please, sir,” he said, “I have been sent to remind you that you are to supper in the midshipmen’s berth.”

“Thank you. I shall be along directly.”

T
he gale did not show any signs of abating, and the ship rode uneasily to her cable, rain battering down upon the swelling planks, like a drummer beating to quarters. The midshipmen were hosting the three lieutenants and the doctor for supper, and putting on their best for it. A rather passable claret had been procured—from smugglers, Hayden expected—and the main course of mutton, pease (boiled), and boiled potatoes was wholesome if not inspiring. The claret was the highlight of the meal.

Hayden looked around the crowded table. Beside Wickham was seated Mr Archer, then an unusually pensive Dr Griffiths, Freddy Madison, James Hobson, Landry, and the two other mids who had rejoined the ship a few days before Hart’s return. Their names were Tristram Stock and Albert Williams. Trist and Bert, they were called by their fellows, who were forever after finding nicknames for the crew—most of which they could not use to the men’s faces. Hayden thought it would be better not to know what they had christened him.

He wondered how a captain such as Hart had come by such a fine crop of middies. Certainly he did not deserve them…nor did they deserve him. But then Hart’s wife was so well-connected it was perhaps not to be wondered at.

Hayden was answering questions about his service, and was a little embarrassed by the way the midshipmen hung on his every word. “After I passed for lieutenant, I was Third aboard a sixty-four.”

“I’ve never been aboard a sixty-four,” Madison said. “Was she crack, did you think?”

Landry looked up from his food, a dab of gravy upon his tiny chin almost lost among the freckles. “Everyone knows the sixty-fours are all crank, Madison,” he said sourly. “A seventy-four is the ship you want to serve aboard.”

“Is that true, Mr Hayden?” Madison asked, earning him a foul look from the second lieutenant.

“What Mr Landry says is true of many of the old sixty-fours, which is why they have been given such a poor character. But the ships built to the draught of the
Advent
—the
Agamemnon
is one—they are fine sailers. Almost as handy as a frigate, but with a greater weight of broadside, of course, for they have a full deck of twenty-fours as well as a deck of eighteens. They lie-to very close, do not pitch overly, and almost never gripe or yaw. I don’t remember ever missing stays if there was even a breath of wind. All in all, fine ships.”

“Why, then, does the Admiralty not order more of them to be built?” Landry asked, gazing at him darkly.

“Well, Mr Landry, that is a good question. I believe it is because they are not really heavy enough to stand in the line of battle, unlike the seventy-four, which makes them very high-priced frigates. I have been told that one can build two frigates for the cost of a sixty-four-gun ship, so that is your answer. I have often thought the natural employment for a sixty-four would be to carry a commodore’s flag in a frigate squadron. Three or four frigates and a sixty-four would make a formidable little fleet—fast and deadly.”

The midshipmen glanced at one another, all of them now persuaded of the admirable qualities of a sixty-four. Landry went sullenly back to his meal.

“If you please, Mr Hayden, tell them the story you told me,” Archer said, a little smirk appearing. “About the man on the mizzen gaff…”

Hayden had to smile himself, for the thought always amused him. “I was a middy at the time,” Hayden said. “On the North American station.”

“During the American War?” Wickham asked.

“In ’eighty-two. I was on the quarterdeck, and we were about to get under way with other ships of our squadron. Aboard a twenty-eight named the
Albemarle
, we all saw a man climbing out to the end of the mizzen gaff, apparently to clear a flag pendant. A visitor on the quarterdeck asked what the man was about and a lieutenant proposed that he was preparing to protect the flag with his own life, to which a wit responded, ‘It must be Nelson.’”

The middies laughed.

“Who is Nelson?” Stock asked, though he had joined in the mirth.

“Captain Horatio Nelson,” Archer said, rolling his eyes. “It is all well and good to have your faces stuck in books, but you should pay attention to events within your own service!”

“He is a fine officer,” Hayden said, “but known to be a little…
zealous
at times.
He
has a sixty-four now, I’ve been told.”

“Who is the finest captain you ever served with?” Williams asked.

“Bourne, without question,” and then Hayden quickly added, “not to disparage Captain Hart, whom I have only served for a day. We used to say that if the men aboard his ship had been allowed to elect their captain from among all the souls aboard, they would choose Bourne without a dissenting vote, he was that well-loved. You have never seen such a seaman, nor a braver man in action. I believe I learned the greater part of my trade from him, and one could not ask for a better master.” Hayden thought it was time to turn the conversation away from himself. “And you, Mr Landry…what was your favourite ship?”

“My service has been small compared to many: I was a reefer aboard an ancient seventy-four to begin, but she was condemned after my first real voyage, and later broken up; then I was aboard the
Niger
, a thirty-two-gun frigate; a little brig named the
Charlotte
; a ship-sloop; and our present ship. The
Themis
is by far the best, though I much liked the little brig as she was so very handy, and she bore us through a frightful winter storm in the Atlantic. We all lavished great love and care on her after that.”

No one seemed much interested in Landry’s career, and fell silent a moment. Hayden had never known a man passed for lieutenant who had served aboard so few ships, and wondered at it.

“Tell me what you’ve been reading,” Hayden said to the middies in general. “There seem to have been some lively debates in the midshipmen’s mess these past weeks.”

“Mr Burke, sir,” Madison offered, with a look of some pride;
“Reflections on the French Revolution.”

“Have you read it, Mr Hayden?” Wickham wanted to know. The small midshipman peered at him intently in the lamplight.

“My friend Captain Hertle was kind enough to lend me his copy,” Hayden said. “Did you think well of it?”

“Mr Archer liked it overly,” the normally quiet Hobson answered.

Hayden turned to the young lieutenant, who concentrated upon his mutton. “Did you, Mr Archer? And what was your judgement?”

Archer patted his mouth with a napkin, taking a moment before answering. “I thought it contained more common sense than the writings of that man Paine, who is such a darling of the radicals—”

“Burke is a radical himself!” Landry interrupted. The second lieutenant drew himself up in his chair, glaring at Archer, who did not seem overly intimidated. “He supported the cause of the American colonists, and should have been expelled from England for his treason. Let him go live in America if he bears such love of the place, say I. If not for the success of the Americans the French would never have dared turn on their King. But now it is like a plague passing from one nation to the next, the French determined to spread it throughout the Low Countries, and even across the Channel. And the guillotine will travel with it, for the radicals are ever anxious to murder their betters. To murder anyone at all who dares speak out against their excesses.”

“If you took the time to read
Reflections
, Mr Landry, I think you would soon see that Burke is very far from being a member of the Revolution Club,” Archer offered in defence. “And I might remind you that there was no guillotine in America. Indeed, most of the loyalists were allowed to leave.”

“Oh, America will not prosper,” Landry predicted. “You will see. The colonies will turn on each other out of jealousy and greed. Without the English rule of law their precious solidarity will be cast aside at the first hint of imbalance of wealth or power and they will fall to warring among themselves.”

“I think they will prosper very well,” Wickham said. “And they will quickly rival the great powers of Europe.”

Landry waved this suggestion away as though it were a few buzzing insects. “Radicalism is a disease,” he pronounced firmly. “You all saw it yesterday aboard our own ship. Men do not jump to do their duties as once they did, but obey their orders in a desultory manner, a look of naked insolence upon their rum faces. We shall have mutinies aboard His Majesty’s ships. Mark my words. Men will have to be hanged, for that is the physic that cures the disease. Men will have to be hanged.”

There was a moment of silence, the lanterns overhead swaying, as a gust of wind shook the ship and moaned painfully in the rigging.

“You talk like a Frenchman,” Archer said, “prescribing a good course of hanging to cure the ills of the Navy.”

Landry did not much like the mirth that this caused.

“Paine has written a clear answer to Burke’s
Reflections
,” Madison offered into the silence.

“And was charged with sedition for it!” Landry said. “You have not been reading that tripe, I hope?”

Madison turned his attention to his dinner. “It was in the papers.”

An awkward silence settled over the cabin, and Hayden found himself listening to the wind, hoping to hear it moderating a little—but in truth it moaned as loudly as ever.

“And what of you, Doctor?” Wickham asked. “What has been your recent reading?”

“Medical texts, Mr Wickham. I have given up on finding a book that will give me pleasure as earlier volumes did. I do not know why authors can but repeat what others have done before. Shall we forever make new books, as apothecaries make new mixtures, by pouring only out of one vessel and into another? Are we forever to be twisting and untwisting the same rope?”

“Perhaps the difference lies in nuance, Doctor,” Archer answered. “A sonnet will always be a sonnet—the same metre, the same scheme of rhyme, perhaps much the same subjects—but in the hands of a man of genius each can be different from the other in subtle ways.”

“As sheep are different one to another,” Griffiths replied. “I prefer one book to be a sheep, the next a fish, then I should like to read a hawk.”

“Perhaps, Doctor, you can invent a new species of book,” Hayden suggested. “The authors of this world would like a new pattern to copy, I should think.”

The others laughed, and toasts were offered to the fortunes of their cruise.

“Is it true that Admiral Lord Howe’s officers will not drink his health in their own wardroom?” Wickham asked.

“That is the truth,” Stock answered. “Pellin, a lieutenant aboard the seventy-four anchored off our larboard quarter, told me the same not two hours ago. They say Howe is shy and will not quit Spithead for fear of the French.”

“Do you think the admiral is shy, Mr Hayden?” Williams asked. The thought seemed to disturb him a little.

“No,” Hayden answered firmly. “I am uncertain of his tactics, but he is not shy.”

“What do you mean, ‘his tactics’?” Madison looked at him over the rim of his wine glass, the last few crimson drops disappearing down an indelicate chasm.

“He has chosen to keep the Channel Fleet at Spithead, trusting to frigates and smaller ships to watch the French fleet in the harbour of Brest. If the French put to sea, Howe will soon know and set out after them. But I believe these tactics will give way to a close blockade, such as has been arranged at foreign ports in times past.”

“He will preserve both men and ships by this method,” Landry said, “while keeping the sea is destructive of both, especially by winter. Men are ever too quick to call another ‘shy’ who have the good sense to apply a modicum of reason.
Shy…!
”

“That is true, Mr Landry,” Hayden responded. “None can deny it, but if the French fleet slips away on a fair wind and the Channel Fleet is becalmed, as could well happen, the French might do terrible damage before they are found. But I do not mean to criticize Lord Howe, who I believe is a brave and able commander and should not be excoriated so by men who ought to know better.”

“Then let us drink his health,” Wickham said, raising his glass. “Lord Howe.”

“Lord Howe!” the others echoed.

Glasses clattered back onto the table.

“We are to look into the harbour at Brest and assess the strength of the French fleet,” Landry said, retrieving his fork.

Hayden clamped his jaw shut, trying to hide his anger. Hart should have told him of their orders before Landry.

“And then will we return to England or continue to cruise?” Williams asked.

“We are to trace the coast of France south,” Landry said, “looking into every harbour large enough to warrant inspection, and to cause all annoyance to the enemy as we go.”

“Let us hope we cause more ‘annoyance’ than last we managed,” Madison said.

“We were unlucky, that is all,” Landry pronounced too loudly.

This brought a troubled silence in which everyone became interested in their suppers, faces a bit flushed.

Landry seemed to take this as criticism. “You cannot go about firing upon neutrals or taking on enemy squadrons. We have only a deck of eighteen-pounders, I should remind you. It is all well and good to be a fire-breather when you are a midshipman, but a captain has to weigh each situation to a nicety and preserve his ship and crew…or face court-martial. Is that not so, Mr Hayden?”