Under Enemy Colors (56 page)

Hayden noticed Wickham observing this same spectacle.

“And to think I once believed him quite the greatest man of my acquaintance,” Wickham said, unable to hide a certain sadness of tone.

So fall the heroes of our youth, Hayden thought, but said nothing.

He seemed to float in a kind of daze up onto the deck and down into the waiting boat.

As soon as they had travelled beyond earshot of the flagship, Barthe’s rage exploded. “Was that not the most perfect example of Admiralty justice?” the master wondered bitterly. “The mutineers shall hang, and the man who drove them to it receives a knighthood. Fucking Navy!”

Hayden sat down at the table in the captain’s cabin and wrote letters for several of the accused mutineers. In each he said that they had been, prior to the mutiny, men of upstanding character and diligence. He knew that the letters would have no effect whatsoever—the men would all be hanged—but he wrote them attentively anyway, perhaps for no other purpose than to give the men hope for a few days or to assuage his own conscience. He wondered now, in retrospect, if he could not have done something to avert the mutiny. It was a question upon which he went back and forth almost by the hour. Certainly, Stuckey and his friends had been very cunning to exploit the natural anger that resulted from Hart flogging Aldrich, and the captain’s shyness at Belle Île—just when the men were gaining a measure of self-respect. No one could deny that Hart had done much to undermine his first lieutenant and had refused to listen to his warnings. But despite all that, Hayden wondered if he could not have done something more—gathered all the officers to repeat his warnings about the state of the crew, attempted to convince the captain again. He wondered if his wounded pride had led him to let the situation fester, thinking, “I have done my duty, now let Hart reap what he has sown.” And now many a man would hang, whose major offence was no longer being able to bear the tyranny and shyness of Captain Sir Josiah Hart.

A knock was followed by the doctor, whom he invited in.

“How fare you this evening, Mr Hayden?” Griffiths said, slurring his syllables noticeably.

“I am writing letters attesting to the good character of several of the mutineers. A rather futile business, but I feel I must do it.”

“Good for you, but do not waste too much effort in grief for them. We all suffered under Hart’s persecution and yet we did not choose to join the mutiny. For many it was the decision of the moment, perhaps, and their resentment betrayed their better judgement, which though it quickly returned, came too late. Even so, they so chose and we did not. Do not waste your energies in pity for them.”

“But I do.” Hayden leaned forward and spoke so very softly. “After all, did we not once conspire to give Hart his physic at an opportune moment so that we might take a prize? Was that not our own little mutiny?”

“I have no idea of what you speak, Mr Hayden. Indeed, I fear you are drunk. Captain Hart suffered from migraine and stones. I gave him physic when such was required. Here, let me fill your glass.” He reached for the decanter, almost knocking it over.

“Have you not had enough, Doctor?” Hayden wondered.

Griffiths sat back in his seat and closed his eyes. “Not nearly enough. I can still feel. I am not yet numb, to which state I aspire. Did you note how adeptly I said that?
…To which state I aspire
.” The doctor fell silent. For a moment Hayden thought he had passed out.

“Do you know,” Griffiths said softly, “of all Hart’s crimes, and they are manifold, the hanging of McBride is the one that seems to me most vile.”

“You should not blame yourself, Doctor; you only gave evidence that the finger did not belong to any man who remained on ship.”

Griffiths waved a hand drunkenly. “Forget my part. I shall be damned for it or not. Hart had a man hanged for a crime he did not commit. Certainly McBride was an obdurate and quarrelsome individual, but he did not deserve death for it.” A pause. “
I
am quarrelsome on occasion.”

“I have never witnessed it, Doctor.”

“Hart should have been made a Companion of the Order of Blackguard Knights.”

Hayden laughed. “An O.B.K.”

In the silence that followed, Hayden was sure he heard a voice call out that a captain had come alongside. The sounds of feet thumping down the companionway stair. A sharp rap at his door.

“Captain Gardner asking for permission to come aboard, sir.”

“Gardner? At this hour?” Hayden rose quickly. “Help the doctor to his cabin, will you, Mr Jennings. I believe he has a touch of the sea-sickness.”

“In port, sir?”

“I believe it was claret.”

Hayden hastened up the ladders, where he found Gardner climbing unceremoniously onto the darkened deck.

“Captain Gardner, my most profound apologies. Not even a bosun to pipe you aboard, sir—”

“It was my purpose to draw no attention to myself, Mr Hayden. It is I who should apologize for appearing unannounced. May I speak with you in private?”

“Certainly, sir. By all means.”

They repaired to Hart’s cabin, where Hayden poured his guest some wine.

Gardner glanced around the barren compartment. “Hart has taken his belongings ashore?”

“Yes.”

Gardner nodded approvingly. “I do not think he will go to sea again.”

“With his knighthood and now great reputation can a pennant be far off? Admiral Sir Josiah Hart.” Hayden felt his bitterness and anger rise up like bile. His eye fell upon his guest. “He has been saved by the court-martial, after all.”

Gardner turned his intelligent gaze upon Hayden. “It was not Hart I wished to save, Mr Hayden, but you. Oh, in a perfect world, matters would have arranged themselves differently, and Captain Hart would have been exposed to the world for what he is…” Gardner paused. “But the world is less than perfect and arrangements have to be made. Hart was held accountable for none of his failures, but in return you escaped censure. And I must tell you that without the support of Admiral Duncan, Hart’s friends would have seen you blamed in Hart’s place.”

“I apologize, Captain Gardner. I spoke without thinking, an unfortunate habit of mine.”

“We all must speak our minds now and then. But it should comfort you to know that Hart is done in the service. Even his supporters in the Admiralty must realize that now; his acquittal and knighthood are his compensation. It was a devil’s bargain, perhaps, but something good came of it—your future in the service.”

“I owe you and your friends a great—”

“You owe me nothing, Mr Hayden,” Gardner interrupted. “Both my good friends Mr Bourne and Mr Stephens—who is soon to receive a knighthood himself, much deserved in his case—have given you such an excellent character that I felt obliged to do everything in my power to extricate you from your unfortunate situation. In this I had help, for I could never have done it alone.” A grin, lopsided and conspiratorial, appeared on the man’s face.

The grin disappeared. A sad shaking of the head. “It is almost a crime that Hart should receive credit for your deeds, but I think the truth shall soon be in circulation.” For a moment Gardner was silent, as though he had lost his train of thought. “There is another matter upon which we must speak, Mr Hayden. A matter worthy of your greatest attention. It was my distinct impression that this seaman, Peter Aldrich, was dear to all of the officers—with the notable exception of your gallant captain.” He paused but did not allow Hayden time to respond. “The man is in very grave danger, Mr Hayden. He was flogged for mutinous language, and though the court will not punish him again for this offence, he is certainly guilty of mutinous assembly, or will be seen to be so—”

“But his reading of the pamphlets was done in complete innocence—because he believed knowledge to be uplifting. He would have just as happily read the crew the doctor’s medical books.”

Gardner raised thick, angular hands, stark palms out. “I do not doubt you for a moment, Mr Hayden, but the captains of the court do not know your Aldrich. It will be seen that he read seditious texts to the crew, who then mutinied while he was in the sick-berth, too ill to join them. It is true that he did stop the floggings, but even if the man is not seen as part of the mutiny, he will be perceived as contributing to the unrest that led to it. He may not hang, but he will almost certainly be flogged around the fleet—a hundred lashes if the court is lenient, three hundred if it is not.”

“He will not survive it,” Hayden said, feeling the blood drain from his face. “Three dozen lashes were almost his end.”

After he broke his fast, Hayden paid a visit to Robert Hertle aboard his new frigate, christened
Fairway
by the Lords Commissioners.

“I suppose
Roadstead
was already taken,” Hayden observed, as his eye ran the length of the expanse of new-planked deck, almost virginal in its purity.

“At least it is not a name of the
Indomitable
school.
Indefatigable
et cetera.”

“Impregnable…?”
Hayden suggested. “No women allowed.”

“Indefensible,”
Hertle countered, “for sea-lawyers.”

“Irresolute?”

“We all know whose ship that would be.”

They both laughed.

“I am so relieved that you were not dragged into the court-martial, Charles.”

“Hart and the others were all honourably acquitted.”

“Acquitted, perhaps.”

Hayden glanced up at the men working aloft, shading his eyes against the sun. “When do you sail?”

“On the morning tide.”

“Mrs Hertle will be very sad to see you go.”

“She won’t watch my ship leave—a superstition. Mrs Hertle and Henrietta went up to London yesterday.”

Hayden was rather taken aback. “They left…?”

“Yes.” Hertle glanced at him, and then down at the spotless deck. “You should have spoken, Charles.
I
think you should have spoken. I know…you are dissatisfied with your prospects…but now Henrietta believes you are uncertain of your attachment. And I have begun to wonder myself.”

“I am not the least unsure. You cannot know, Robert, what an unrelenting cause for worry is a narrow income. Henrietta is used to a life of comfort, of going up to London whenever the whim strikes, of wearing the latest fashions—of
buying
the latest fashions. A lieutenant’s eight pounds eight a month will not keep her in such style, and her father has numerous daughters. He cannot possibly offer them all a living.”

“Have you forgotten already Lady Hertle and her two fine homes?”

“It is not my practice to think of a woman in terms of her fortune.”

“You
are
uncertain of your own attachment. Certainly you must be, for these are the slimmest excuses. Henrietta Carthew shall never be poor, and do not think other men are insensible to this.”

“And would she follow a failed naval officer to America? Will she forsake England and her remarkable family for the uncertainties of Boston or New York?”

Robert crossed his arms and regarded his friend. “If your attachment were profound you would not be asking such questions. You would not even be terribly concerned about having your suit rebuffed. I know of what I speak. When love is like a madness you care very little for how dignified you appear or about where or how you might live. It is better that you said nothing, Charles.” He pushed away from the rail where he had been leaning. “Come, let us have the rest of our tour.”

Over a dinner in the captain’s cabin, Hayden related recent events, the court-martial, Hart’s knighthood, the unheralded visit from Gardner. He chronicled these proceedings with little zeal or even interest, feeling the sting of Henrietta’s rather abrupt removal to London and wondering all the while if he had made a terrible error. Perhaps he
was
unsure of his own attachment…

Hertle remained silent, pensive, while his friend spoke. When Hayden finished, his manner did not change, as though he placed everything said upon a scale and watched, now, as the balance rocked one way then the other.

“I believe it is good news that both Philip Stephens and Captain Gardner—who will soon have his flag—have gone to some effort to shield you from the taint that your fellow officers will never quite be rid of…Hart’s mutiny.”

“Stephens made me no promises, which distressed you in the past.”

“Yes, but he has done much to preserve your reputation, so that you might find employment in the future, I would venture.”

“Perhaps he has some other captain who needs a nursemaid.”

“Stephens knows how diligently you prosecuted the war against the French on your recent cruise. Others must know it, as well, despite the
Times
account. Let us hope that something will come of it. But I will tell you, stealing back the master’s log probably had more effect than you realize. Until then Hart probably thought he could lie and bluster his way through the court-martial, but after that some arrangement had to be reached.” Hertle sat back from the table. “So, what is your opinion of my ship?”