A Divided Command (16 page)

‘Naturally,’ Nelson responded before reacting to a raised Pearce eyebrow. ‘If I may make so bold, I have heard something of the same aimed at your person.’

He let that sink in, then took up again his refrain.

‘And what do I find when I take the time to discover for myself what the truth is? I find an agreeable companion who, if he holds opinions with which I very much do not agree, has served as I once did before the mast and is, to my mind, a fellow of some presence and good conversation.’

‘You flatter me, sir,’ Pearce replied and he meant it; he also suspected he knew why.

Nelson grinned. ‘There you go being modest again, Mr Pearce, which I have no hesitation in telling you will do you no good in the service. While I do not advocate the blowing of your own trumpet, it does no good to hide your light under a bushel.’

Shall I count the clichés, Pearce was wondering?

‘I myself have ahead of me a notable destiny.’ It was impossible not to react to such a statement and Pearce did not try; nor did it go unnoticed. ‘Oh, I know it is not the done thing to talk in such a fashion, but I have had the certainty of that since I was relatively new to the navy and I had a dream that told me so.’

‘You served before the mast, sir?’ Pearce asked; he did not want to go to where Nelson was leading, being unsure
if he could keep his face straight when presented with the outpourings of dreams, which to his mind tended to be claptrap whoever was talking. ‘I find that odd.’

‘Why so? I was sent on a voyage as a stripling, just after I took service with my Uncle Suckling. You may have heard of Captain Suckling, he was quite famous for a battle fought off Cape St Francis …’

‘I am sorry to admit, sir, his name is not known to me.’

‘Matters not, but my uncle sent me on a voyage aboard a merchant vessel, six months on the Triangular Passage in which I learnt to hand and reef if not to steer, to go aloft in foul weather and fair, to set and take in sail. More than that, Mr Pearce, I spent time with the kind of men I now command and I will tell you, sir, I find I understand them better than many of my fellows, which leads to fewer problems of discipline.’

‘Which can only be a good thing.’

‘I am no lover of the cat.’

Yet you can sympathise with Barclay who is your polar opposite; that thought had to be put aside as Nelson stood and went to his writing stand, returning with two sealed letters and an oilskin pouch.

‘I entrust these to you, Mr Pearce. The pouch contains both your orders and Lord Hood’s communication to Sir William, the others … well, we have already spoken of them.’

Since he remained standing Pearce had little choice but to do likewise.

‘Once your mission is complete I wish you to join my squadron off the coast of Savoy – you will find the rendezvous with our man in Genoa. I intend to put you and
HMS Larcher
to close-inshore work, for we must find out what the Revolution is up to.’

‘Sir.’

‘So, until then, God speed. I expect you to sail at first light, given I am sure you are fully victualled. Forgive me if I do not see you to your boat, but I have a rate of paperwork to attend to, the downside, I must tell you, of the pennant Lord Hood granted me.’

The torch-bearing mob that descended on the Pensione d’Ambrosio were in no mood to talk, or even to wonder if there was anyone who needed to be spared from their wrath. The only admonishment that the man leading them had made, and this was to his fellow midshipman, was that they should avoid using their dirks, for if knives were drawn then more blood might be spilt than was wise.

To say they burst into the place was only partially true, given the entrance was too narrow, poured being a better description, and they laid about anyone found, be they servants or soldiers, which if it was unfair was the habit of a mob. The officers’ servants sought to come to their aid and got a pounding for their efforts, while the men they attended to were likewise given a drubbing, barring their wounded Major Lipton, of course: no true Briton would assault a man with his arm in a sling.

Bruised and bleeding, the victims were noisily borne out of the smashed-open door to be carried to the harbour where, with a care that made sure they did not drown, and on run-up slings that men of the sea could produce in a trice, they were ducked repeatedly in the harbour until they lay in a dripping heap on the cobbles.

‘And don’t you go bad-mouthing our commodore again, or any other soul for that matter. If you do we won’t haul you out but leave you to sink.’

The hired boat taking the Pelicans back to
HMS Larcher
had stopped well away from the quay and just as distant from their ship. They could see flaring torches and guess at what was taking place and it was enough to establish that matters had, in the case of John Pearce and the men who had insulted his lady, been settled.

‘That was sharp, Charlie,’ said Rufus softly.

‘More’n one way to skin a cat, mate, but I have to say it was nip and tuck for a while who was going to get it.’

‘You led them right up the garden.’

Their eyes fixed on the quay, they did not see the other boat being rowed beyond them towards the shore, so it came as a shock when they heard the voice of John Pearce calling to the pair sitting upright, just before he ordered his oarsmen to back to a stop.

‘We’s on our way back to
Larcher
, Capt’n,’ Charlie shouted, he being quicker-witted than Rufus, while Michael could not take part: he was laid across a thwart and snoring. ‘Michael is here with us and set for a sore head of the morning.’

The Pearce tone was mordant. ‘Then I can take it you enjoyed your run ashore?’

‘Had the time of our lives, Your Honour.’

‘Well get some sleep, we weigh at first light. When Michael comes to, tell him to prepare my cabin to once more accommodate Mrs Barclay.’

‘Aye, aye, sir.’

Then Pearce called to his boat crew. ‘Give away, lads.’

Ralph Barclay had gone into a towering rage on finding the identity of the officer with whom his wife had sailed, as well as the proposed destination of the Mediterranean, information supplied to him by the Admiralty, that made even more galling when he was told there was no plan in place for
HMS Larcher
to return. Such was his passion it nearly brought on an apoplexy, one that alarmed his clerk-cum-secretary.

Cornelius Gherson’s fear that his employer might do himself an injury was not based on any regard for his person, more it was a dread that should Barclay expire so he would be left not only without a job but also without a valuable source of income from his peculations. These he was able to carry out aboard
HMS Semele
and they were small, but they added to the stipend he was getting from Ommany and Druce for his advantageous – to them – way of scrutinising the use they made of their client’s money. Gherson could read a book of complex accounts; Barclay could not.

They had rushed back to the offices of the prize agent to face an emollient Druce, who sought to calm his irate client and, once he had put a check on the more intemperate outbursts promising foul retribution on John Pearce, then did that which his duties required. He needed to find a solution that would solve Barclay’s problems without causing the company of which he was a partner any of their own. The answer lay, as it had before, with Hodgeson.

While careful not to suggest anything conclusive, certainly nothing that would publicly shame Barclay, Druce had recommended that the thief taker be employed to find out how far this untoward relationship between John Pearce and his wife had gone. In short, was it, even if unlikely, innocent or had it strayed into areas that, while Druce never named them, were obvious to both parties.

‘I am suggesting, Captain Barclay,’ the prize agent put forward, ‘that you need to be in possession of the facts before you can decide how to act.’

As a result, Hodgeson found himself once more in the New Forest enclave of Buckler’s Hard, seeking out more information about the lady who had been observed on the deck of
HMS Larcher
. Not that he was having much in the way of luck, but local ignorance established one very obvious fact: Emily Barclay had not resided here at the Hard, there being no place in which she might have taken rooms. If you computed the time between her departing Nerot’s Hotel and actually sailing away there was a gap, which implied she must have stayed somewhere.

Buckler’s Hard was isolated and not surrounded by towns boasting decent hostelries, which narrowed matters down considerably. So starting at the most obvious place, which
was Lyndhurst, Hodgeson did that at which he was very experienced: he questioned those who would open up to him about who had stayed in such places.

This was never the owner: all they ever cared about was protecting their establishment against any hint of scandal that might affect future trade. But all coaching inns needed servants, lots of them, and some of the tasks were so menial, like emptying the night soil, it meant they were not filled with folk brimming with loyalty to the person who paid their meagre wage.

Indeed, often it was not a money payment but given in kind, in the form of a bed and food, so that such creatures were obliged to carry out other duties, such as sweeping away equine ordure or carrying bags in the hope of a tip, to fund a tankard of ale. The offer to buy for a bit of information was thus usually more than welcome.

‘All servants talk, Mr Druce,’ Hodgeson said, ‘and the meaner their reward the more they are inclined to open up. If they did not, then the thief taker’s job, which has got hard enough over the years, anyway, would become impossible.’

If Druce was nodding in agreement, he was also wondering at the nature of his own household. Was it secure, or as this man was implying, leaking like a sieve? Should he admonish his own servants to keep their tongues or would such an act imply to them there were secrets to sell? The notion that he might pay them better to ensure their loyalty did not enter into his ruminations.

‘I worked my way down from Lyndhurst to the coast at Lymington and struck gold, though not with Mrs Barclay’s name, nor that of John Pearce, but by a description of the pair. She was staying in the King’s Head right enough, but under another name.’

‘Which is?’

‘Raynesford,’ Hodgeson replied, with his employer noting that down. ‘Both were registered under the same name and they occupied the same set of rooms.’

The sigh from Druce was audible and had him once more reflecting on the suitability of young women as wives to men old enough to know better.

‘There is no doubt?’

‘None, sir, for I cornered the owner and overcame his reluctance with threats.’ Seeing the look of enquiry he added, ‘It is easy to spread a rumour, Mr Druce, and the last thing the man who owned the King’s Head needs is that his establishment should be known as a place for illicit trysts. Lymington is not London, sir, and such stories being abroad would ruin his trade.’

‘So there is no doubt that there was lubricious activity?’

‘No need to be a fly on the wall, Mr Druce, is there now? If two lovebirds share a bed then there is little doubt of what they get up to. Besides, proof of an act of adultery is not required for Captain Barclay’s purposes, he merely has to show the evidence I have gathered for him to take any course of action he likes.’

‘This is not a letter he is going to enjoy.’

‘With respect, Mr Druce, if he has not made the connection by now, and understood what is going on between his wife and this John Pearce, he is living in a fool’s paradise.’

‘For all that is true, Hodgeson, it does not make dealing with the man any the more simple.’

Throughout the journey back to Torbay and now in his cabin aboard
HMS Semele
, Ralph Barclay had been gnawing on
that very problem, for he had made what Hodgeson called ‘the connection’ all too readily. What neither Druce nor the investigator he had hired knew, was the other connection he had to Pearce, one that had nothing to do with his wife. They were certainly unaware of the man’s attempts to get him into the dock on a charge of perjury.

The letter he had received from Admiral Hotham’s clerk left him in no doubt that the situation was serious and if he praised the actions that had been taken on his behalf, it did not induce any feelings of security. His wife had threatened him with the same revelations as those being sought by the lawyer Pearce had engaged and, added to the worry of what that swine was doing with her, was concern at their present location. He had to assume their journey had been without mishap for there were people out there who could sink him without trace, most worryingly Toby Burns.

Gherson had watched him closely over the same period and if his expression betrayed nothing of his feelings, he was taking some pleasure in his employer’s discomfort. Nor would he offer any verbal sympathy, for that would merely expose him to a blast of abuse, it being he who had undertaken to get hold of the copy of Barclay’s court martial papers so they could be destroyed, a document which should never have existed in the first place.

That he had failed to do so was bad enough, yet Barclay had no idea how close Gherson had come to his own personal nemesis at the hands of one of London’s most notorious villains, a slug called Jonathan Codge as well as the Bow Street Runners, this for the initiation of the burglary carried out on behalf of Barclay.

He had come close to being had up by the very same
Runners, escaped by the merest fluke, then been forced to lie about the destruction of the document, claiming it had been destroyed by fire. When it transpired it was still in existence it had led to a blistering explosion of rage – his employer was prone to that – in which Gherson had been torn to shreds.

Part of Barclay’s problem, as he filtered various courses of action through his mind, was the lack of anyone in whom to confide. Not much given, through a lifetime of experiences, to trusting his fellow humans in the first place, his present position as the captain of a seventy-four-gun ship of the line did not ease matters for it carried with it isolation.

None of his inferior officers were close enough to him to play the devil’s advocate, and even if they had been he would not have suffered to engage them for the sheer loss of face such an encounter would entail. How could he command men who knew his inner turmoil? Nor was he – and he would, like all such people, deny the truth of the fact – open to taking advice, however sound or well intentioned.

As for his fellow captains, some of whom were under that same cloud with Lord Howe as he, talking to them risked the same end result as talking to his inferiors. Really there was only one person who he could use as a sounding board, and distasteful as he found it to give the role to his clerk, there was no choice.

Gherson’s opening gambit posed the obvious question and it was done with a look of deep concern, one that belied the man’s true feelings: he was enjoying himself. At one time he had harboured designs on Emily Barclay, for she was a tempting morsel. She would have said she rebuffed him; such was his vanity that Gherson thought of it as stupid self-denial based on her county morality. But in doing so she had crushed
a vain man and created an enemy who was eager to pay her back for the way she had treated him.

‘I am bound to ask, sir, what is the outcome you seek?’ Getting no reply, which was what he had expected, he had the pleasure of laying out a set of equally unpleasant alternatives. ‘Do you wish, as you have often stated, to force your wife back to the marital abode, or do you intend to cast her aside? In that case, how far do you want to take matters? For instance, though such a course would be horrendously difficult, would you aspire to seek a bill of divorce?’

There was a certain amount of goading in this; Gherson was not going to mention the very obvious solution to Barclay’s dilemma and one, though it had never been openly stated, he knew his employer had considered. The captain of
HMS Semele
cared for only two things, his future in the navy and that he should not be made a laughing stock by the actions of others, and that was doubled in spades when it came to being exposed as a cuckold.

The response was slow to come, Barclay being patently uncomfortable. ‘I have thought on all of these till my head spins, man, you know that.’

‘Sir,’ Gherson said with silky insincerity, ‘I am as much at a stand myself, for I am, as you know, attached to you in a way that makes your wife’s actions painful to me.’

Barclay wanted to yell at him then, he being not in the least degree fooled; he knew Gherson for what he was and he trusted him not at all. He was just as deceitful as Emily and his supposed loyalty was based on self-interest, which was at least something he could understand. But having him as a sounding board forced Barclay to hold in his anger, which allowed Gherson to continue.

‘How do you act when someone has so utterly betrayed you and threatens to destroy every achievement for which have given your life? Mrs Barclay’s actions do not only expose you to ridicule as her husband, but they also affect your stature as a senior post captain, the respect of your peers and certainly, in the case of Admiral Hotham, a superior who is in no doubt of your gifts?’

‘By God, Gherson, if the truth ever gets out about my court martial he will be as damaged as me.’

‘A fact of which, it would be safe to assume, the admiral is fully aware.’ Gherson sighed then. ‘It makes one wish for the gods of ancient times, who could strike people down with bolts of lightning.’

‘I don’t recall any gods, ancient or of our own time, ever coming to my aid. The trouble with you, Gherson, is that you have no idea of how I have had to struggle just to get to where I am. You have never been bullied in a mids berth, as I was, treated like a fool and openly insulted by senior lieutenants when I got my elevation. And even when I was made post those gods of whom you speak took away the one man who might have aided me and kept me in employment.’

‘Lord Rodney.’

Gherson had replied by stating the obvious, this being a good way to mollify his master, though the temptation to respond by detailing the vicissitudes of his own life was tempting. His upbringing had been no bed of roses, either, with pious Huguenot parents who had chucked him out of his family home at a young age for nothing more than a few minor transgressions.

How would Barclay have coped in the rookeries and alleyways of London as a stray waif without a roof, a good-looking youth
trying to make his way while avoiding all the traps into which such as he could fall, not all of which he managed to evade? A life of petty crime was full of danger but in the end it was those looks that brought salvation, that added to being supremely adept at numbers, added to the easy charm of a fellow who could lie without a twinge of conscience.

The regard of women had lifted Gherson out of paucity and he had targeted those who had a telling age difference with their spouse, added to which the man had to have some wealth, be in need of a numerate clerk and not too sharp at seeing exactly where his money was going. It was one such, Alderman Denby Carruthers, who, having realised his wife’s infidelity, had hired thugs to throw him off London Bridge, only for Gherson to land alongside a passing boat carrying pressed men to be taken into the navy.

One of the men in that boat had been John Pearce, and if Gherson carried a grudge against Emily Barclay it was as nothing to the way he felt about that arrogant sod, and the fact that Emily Barclay had succumbed to him did not help. He would never admit, of course, to jealousy, but then he did not need to with a man who had provided him with enough reasons for hate without it.

‘So far,’ Barclay growled, when his clerk’s silence had lasted too long, ‘you have been very good at listing my difficulties. I do not hear a word of solution from your lips.’

Gherson’s chin went to his chest, as if he was cogitating on a set of problems new to him. They were, of course, not that: he had spent nearly as much time thinking on the conundrum as had the captain and the conclusion he had come to was unassailable in argument. The answer could not be found here, while the threats were a thousand miles away.
Nor could they be satisfactorily solved by any legal means he could think of and that left only the one option.