A Sea of Troubles (13 page)

The boat crew, or whoever had taken charge of them and had elected to leave him behind, did not tell anyone in authority that the Midshipman Burns had been abandoned, that they had sought succour for a wounded sailor above both his needs and his position of command. Instead they had reported Mr Burns as insisting on remaining where there was fighting, which left the youth
– who could have seen the grating rigged for what they had done – in no position to dish them, without likewise doing the same to himself. Later a hand, taking advantage of the lack of anyone else close by, spoke behind Toby’s back, to point out that it would do him no harm to drop by the sickbay and look in on the fellow who had taken a ball in his back.

‘Name’s Feathers, an’ he’s in a bad way. Might never have the use of his legs again, young sir, which you has to say is a foul jest played by a spiteful God, seeing it did not need a ball in the spine to brace your’n’s rigid.’

Toby turned to remonstrate only to find himself looking at the back of a checked shirt rapidly moving away and beyond him the quarterdeck, where stood the officer of the watch and, unfortunately, Sir William Hotham, who was glaring at him. All Toby could do was touch his hat, note the flash of very apparent disgust and wonder what it was he had done to deserve it from a man who had so recently given all the impression of smiling upon him, Toby being unaware of how much of the admiral’s time had been taken up thinking of a way to deal with the problem he presented.

‘You see, Sir William, if you read this Lucknor fellow’s letter, it is plain that he has never corresponded with Burns prior to this.’

‘I do not see how that changes matters, Toomey.’

The admiral’s senior clerk had on many occasions been obliged to suppress his frustrations, working as he did for a man who too often seemed incapable of seeing the obvious, and that had to be kept from his
tone of voice as well, for Hotham was just as prickly of his honour.

‘He has no knowledge of the lad’s hand, sir, so if he was to receive another letter, penned by me in the same style but with a vastly different list of responses, how is he to know it is not genuine?’

‘What if your letter and Burns are together in one place, eh?’

‘The chances of that are slim, sir. This Lucknor is in London, Burns out here with us.’

‘But it is possible, for that lawyer is not airing a grievance of his own, he is acting on behalf of a client.’

Toomey knew the import of that, for he had in his possession the depositions made by that fellow Pearce and the trio of sailors who were attached to him. Given they and Burns served in the same navy, who knows what might happen. Matters were bad enough and if forgery was added to his suspect court martial it could become an even steeper slope to perdition. Hotham merely wanted to suppress what Toby Burns had written – to not forward his reply – but there was strong argument against that. The affair could not just be left to stew for, if he was not a lawyer himself, he suspected that this fellow Lucknor, in the absence of a response, would write again, and how could they be sure of the same level of interception a second time? This, slowly and tactfully, he explained to his superior.

‘You said, sir, I admit in some passion, that you were damned if you could keep Burns within sight.’

‘I want to swat the treacherous little toad every time I clap eyes on him and, damn me, I might lose myself one day and do it in front of the ship’s officers.’

‘So it is your intention to have him shift to another berth?’

‘It is, and damn soon, but not before he has had a few weeks of service before the guns of Calvi. I intend to send him to the siege batteries where he can share whatever risks that popinjay Nelson affords himself. Given his stupidity that will be right with the foremost guns.’

There was no need for Hotham to elaborate on that; Burns would be put in a position of maximum danger as he had in the beach landing. That this was an act of pure vindictiveness did not trouble Toomey, his task was to serve his master and keep his own position, which was about to be much enhanced. Lord Hood could not remain in command for much longer and his admiral was in line and had the political backing to succeed him. That would take Toomey to the pinnacle of his trade; to be the senior clerk to a commanding admiral was a position from which a man could make a fortune and such a notion was just as appealing to him as the actual role was to Hotham.

‘Then that gives me time, sir, to put my mind to a solution.’

‘More than your mind, Toomey, I want your heart and soul engaged in this.’

The solution was not long in being presented. Toomey would write a letter of his own to Lucknor and, as he pointed out, any further immediate attempt to contact Burns would come to the flagship and could thus be intercepted, which would be rendered especially safe if the youngster was shifted to another vessel, preferably one where the captain had a strong attachment to Hotham
and one who could be primed, with a made-up tale, that any correspondence that Burns undertook should be passed first to HMS
Britannia
.

‘Shifting mids is not easy, Toomey, a captain likes his own cho`ices aboard ship.’

‘I am aware of that Sir William, and I point out to you that Lord Hood has called for an examination after the fall of Calvi so that the high number of midshipmen acting as lieutenants should have a chance to attain the actual rank.’

‘You’re not suggesting that I put up Burns?’

‘I am, sir.’

‘Won’t work, dammit, I doubt the little bugger would pass.’

‘He would if he knew what the questions were going to be and had the answers. After all, I daresay if you offered to relieve Lord Hood of the burden of arranging the examination, to which I think given his great responsibilities he would accede, the choice of captains to sit on the judging panel would be yours.’

Hotham was now toying with a nut and a pair of crackers, though one showed no sign of being placed in proximity to the other and as usual he was applying his less than rapid mental processes to the suggestion. If it was not a commonplace for an admiral to stuff the board about to test the skill of a relative it was not unknown and a hint to those sitting, no less than it had been at Barclay’s court martial, that a certain result was required, was one that would be taken on board. The only difficulty came from those same captains having sons or nephews of their own; the day would come when a favour granted would be one called in.

‘And what then?’

‘Then he could be placed aboard another ship as the most junior lieutenant, out of your sight but still under your supervision, given there are no plans to change the make-up of the fleet.’

‘That will not pertain for ever.’

‘I am proposing an immediate solution to an immediate problem. No one can know the future, but if we can kill off enquires now, that argues we may choke off the whole affair.’

A gleam came into Hotham’s eye then, for he thought Burns would make a poor, indeed a terrible deck officer – the boy had no spunk in him – that would expose him to the wrath of his captain, especially if another hint from him indicated that would be permissible. What he would really like was for the sod to stuff a cannonball down his breeches and jump over the side on a dark night and at that moment he was fancying a fellow could be driven to that.

‘That seems to me,’ Toomey pressed, ‘to be the only alternative to keeping him on the flagship. After all, we cannot send him home.’

Another long pause ensued and Toomey knew not to press; Hotham had no ideas of his own and also little choice but to accept those put to him and that eventually penetrated his thinking.

‘No. Write your letter and send it off.’

‘Sir.’

‘And send Burns to me so I can give him news of his new appointment and his future prospects.’

Pearce had become accustomed to sleep being short but the same could not be said for spending the night on bare boards and his bench seemed harder than deck planking. He awoke stiff and in an ill temper, caused as much because of what he might have to face as his limbs, well aware that he felt grubby and needed, before he faced anyone, a wash and more particularly a proper shave. The inn was up and buzzing with activity, preparing for the day and at last he and Michael could retire to a room where hot water was provided, not that O’Hagan was interested: he dropped his boots on the floor and lay down to continue his slumbers, despite the loud ringing of the bells from the nearby cathedral.

A man was sent up to take Pearce’s uniform coat; that to be sponged and pressed, his stock washed and ironed dry, while, razor in hand over a bowl of steaming water, looking into a less than clear mirror, he rehearsed again and again the lines he had worked to death on the way
to Winchester, continually aiming to hit the right tone. It had to be firm but apologetic that no warning of what had occurred could be made. Breakfast came as well – he was assured that the other guests had yet to appear or request refreshments – added to the information that there were no places on the London Flyer until the next day; whatever was about to happen would take place here in the Wykham Arms.

After a knock, the door opened and the serving man returned with his clothing, which he handed over with a look at O’Hagan, awake but still recumbent, that promised hellfire for his being fully clothed while laying on the establishments linen. All he got in response was an exaggerated wink and the remark that, sure, soft bedding beats a hammock any day and if he had a wench handy his pleasure would be complete.

‘Saving your presence, but you asked to be informed if the other guests were up and about. I am to say the ladies have called for hot water.’

‘There’s no justice in the world, John-boy, here’s you with two paramours hard by and me bereft.’

If they, as a pair, did not already stand very high in the regard of the staff of the Wykham – no doubt the night man had described their arrival – that remark and its implications, judging by the expression on the servitor’s face, took it to a new low. He exited murmuring about the world going to the dogs, with Pearce calling after him to fetch two hearty breakfasts and quickly, as well as an inkwell and paper, the latter immediately.

‘I have no mind to face anyone on an empty stomach.’

‘Am I allowed to be an observer, John-boy?’

‘No you are not. This is serious, Michael, and the last thing I need in the background is you grinning and leering at me.’

That was what Pearce got now. ‘Then you will give Mrs Barclay my compliments.’

‘Would you not be better seeing if the horses are being well looked after?’

‘Why, brother, are we planning a quick getaway?’ O’Hagan started to laugh, his body heaving. ‘Sure that would be a sight, the hero John Pearce in flight from a couple of women.’

Another knock, another glare at the bed, but the means to communicate was handed over, with Pearce carrying it to the dresser and immediately sitting down to write.

‘Instead of vexing me, Michael, you would do me a service if you were to ask for a private room in which I can speak to Emily. There will be one on the ground floor, I’m sure.’

Michael dragged himself up, pulled on his boots and headed for the door. ‘And here was me thinking my days of being a servant were at an end.’

The note Pearce wrote was short, simply saying that he was staying in the same inn and that he desired a word in private. The temptation to add ‘to avoid a scene’ he considered but put aside; Emily, if she knew the connection to Amélie Labordière, would smoke his reasons without them being spelt out. Michael returned to say the room had been reserved and where it was, just off the hallway, and that Pearce appended, as well as a time he hoped she would accept. Breakfast arrived next and the pair sat down to a couple of beefsteaks washed
down with strong local cider. The plates were clean and the cider jug empty when Emily’s reply came that she was at his convenience.

‘At my convenience,’ Pearce moaned, for it was so very formal. ‘This is going to be worse than even I imagined.’

‘Hell hath no fury, I am told, like a woman scorned,’ Michael said, getting to his feet. ‘And now, if you will forgive, I must go about my occasions, as polite folk say.’

‘I have another letter to write, to Dundas, telling him I am returned and who with.’

Michael’s eyes were twinkling. ‘Your one-time mistress, John-boy?’

‘Damn you, no, the Count de Puisaye.’

‘Sure, I cannot help but think your man would prefer the former.’

Aboard HMS
York
Lieutenant Moyle was likewise examining his empty breakfast plate, washed down in his case by a bottle of claret, and ruminating on the state of his existence, which seemed as messy as the remains of the fowl he had just consumed. Like all young men he had entered the navy full of ambition and had, in his first midshipman’s berth, dreamt of the glory of command in battle, of a great victory that would set him up with his richly deserved estate and carriage and four with which to go about and impress. How different it had been in reality! A struggle to maintain even employment as a midshipman, then once that had been achieved a scraped pass in the lieutenant’s examination followed by years of pleading for a place afloat and, on landing one, being shown to be barely competent in the necessities of his profession.

He still occasionally shuddered to recall the very obvious mistakes he had made, added to the realisation that he was not cut out to be a seaman. It was a distant relative and MP, much badgered and eventually worn down, who had secured for him this posting, which if it was a lowly one was at least secure as long as he did not foul his own anchor. But it was also, most assuredly, not a platform to better things; to be promoted to captain, to be made post from his present position was too fanciful for words, so it was incumbent upon him to make the best he could out of what was a dead-end position.

‘Tolland, sir,’ said the guard, a different fellow from the previous night, through the open door.

‘Let him enter and close the door behind him.’ The guard obliged and Jahleel Tolland clanked forward as he had before, to stand just inside the closed door, his eyes on the breakfast remains with Moyle jesting as he observed the direction of the look. ‘I daresay you did not eat as well as I.’

‘You knows I did not,’ Tolland growled. ‘I had gruel not fit for pigswill.’

Among Moyle’s less attractive traits, and he would have been pushed to admit it as true, he seeing himself as an upright soul, was his tendency to bully and the tone of the prisoner’s voice irritated him enough to bring what was never far from the surface to the fore. When the nature of his task and his lack of prospects took him into a depression, which it did on many occasions, there was the saving grace of always having other people to physically take it out on.

‘I could have you flogged at a whim, cur, and be
assured it is not a task I delegate to others. It is my own arm I employ and my own retribution I satisfy.’

‘I daresay you provide what you can,’ Tolland replied, working hard to look contrite, for there was a game to be played and an angry hulk commander was not helpful.

‘I do,’ Moyle purred, ‘and I am seen as generous.’

Outside the door, the guard who had fetched Tolland from below raised his eyes to the deck beams above his head in disbelief; with the exchange loud enough, he could hear clearly what was being said and his reaction would have been greeted by his fellow guards as correct. Moyle was a lying, thieving bastard who stole what rations he could, a tyrant and an oppressor of those beneath him, as well as an arse-licker to anyone who had the means to allow him to further line his pockets. The last thing the guard heard was that Tolland should sit down; with the two now close the talk was too indistinct to make sense.

‘I sense you have come to a proper appreciation of your situation?’

‘Hard not to,’ Tolland responded, holding up manacled hands that showed evidence of being bitten more than once.

‘Ah yes. The ship’s cats do their best, but with rodents so numerous it would take a blaze to shift them.’

‘Moving up a deck would suffice some.’

‘So it would, Tolland, but I am sure you have not come to see me seeking only a bit of deck elevation.’

‘I want to know what would it take to get my brother and I free?’

‘Not a great deal – someone to attest in writing, of
course, and it would need to be a person very respectable, that you are not seamen and are, in fact, gentlemen.’

‘And how would this person of standing be made aware of where we are?’

‘You would have to communicate with them by letter. I take it you can write?’

‘My brother has a fair hand, yet he lacks the means to do what you say, for he too had his purse swiped by your men.’

‘True,’ Moyle replied, with a grim smile, ‘but I do not lack the means.’

Dealing with a plague of rats did not preclude thinking and Jahleel Tolland had been gifted many waking hours to do that. He had guessed that this Lieutenant Moyle had in mind to set them free and for a price, only neither of them knew what that should be. Moyle was keen to extract the maximum he could, without any knowledge of what kind of funds the Tollands had access to; Jahleel had the opposite aim, to get off this ship for as little disbursement as he could.

He had hidden the money he carried in his saddlebags in a pocket on the inside of his riding boots, unobserved by Pearce and his sailors who were not, in any case, looking to steal. That was now hidden in the filthy straw on which he and his gang had been obliged to sleep; even if rats might leave the odd mark of their teeth they could not eat gold. Having palmed a couple of guineas on being called to come to the great cabin, he moved his hand across the tabletop and left them in plain view. Eyes drawn to them, Moyle moved slowly to pick them up.

‘There has to be more than this?’

‘For paper and an inkwell?’

‘For the right to walk free.’

‘All eight?’

‘Two, no more.’

If Jahleel Tolland thought about that at all, it was not for long; his other men would just have to take their chances. ‘Happen the man I write to could satisfy your needs and mine but I would need to know how much that would be. I can scarce ask if I do not know.’

Moyle sat back, still playing with the coins. ‘I would need ten times this and more. Judas priced Jesus at thirty pieces of silver. I am sure you value your head higher than that.’

If Jahleel Tolland was thinking, I’ve got you cheap you grasping sod, there was no sign of it on his face. If anything he looked worried, as if what was being requested was too steep. He had that sum hidden in the straw, but he knew this Lieutenant John Moyle was not a man to trust. He could just take what Jahleel had, then laugh in his face; better a couple of night’s fighting off rats than that.

‘I’d say he might go to that, but there’s only one way to be certain.’

‘A letter?’ Tolland nodded as Moyle flipped the coins. ‘Let us say this pair of beauties will cover pen and ink, shall we?’

‘Does it cover a higher deck too?’

‘Perhaps when your letter is written and I have seen what it says and to whom it is addressed. After all, I must make sure you do not try to dish me by some code I cannot comprehend.’

‘My brother will write in front of you.’

‘He will have to,’ Moyle laughed.

‘When?’

‘The guard that takes you down can bring him up.’

‘After we’s had a word, so he knows what needs sayin’.’

Moyle nodded, loudly ordered Tolland taken down, then went to admire his image in one of the many mirrors that dotted the bulkheads of his cabin, thinking that if he was not as much a sailor as many of his contemporaries, he was very much their match in the means to extract profit from a situation.

Pearce was standing by an unlit fireplace when Emily entered the private room, his elbow on the mantle. He had been staring at a very poor reproduction of the kind of painting done by the leading London artists – in this case no doubt executed by a travelling limner and copyist – of men mounted on horses, their pack of hounds chasing a fox across, he assumed, the Hampshire landscape, and thinking how often in his life he had been the prey and not the hunter. Turning as the door opened, what he observed, a tight-lipped Emily Barclay, did nothing to make him feel less so and that was compounded when he walked towards her, holding out hands she declined to take, with a sharp shake of the head.

‘Emily, I …’

The head dropped so he could not see her eyes. ‘Do you not think, John, that explanations are superfluous? I assume that you have arranged the meeting for that purpose?’

‘It is all coincidence, happenstance. I found Amélie to be in distressed circumstances and felt obliged to help her.’

‘While providing for yourself an outlet for …’ That obviously conjured up a word for Emily she could not use. ‘How very convenient that must have seemed.’

‘It was not convenient, in fact it was damned …’ Pearce threw up his hands, for to use such language with Emily was to destroy his case on its own. ‘Forgive my blaspheming but can you not see that I am being judged in a light that is unfair?’

‘It is not a pleasure,’ Emily whispered, ‘when you think you have secured someone’s heart, to find you are required to share it.’

‘You cannot think I would do that. Is your opinion of me so low that you can even consider such a thing?’

‘You have needs, have you not?’

‘I am a man, I grant you.’

‘Which I seem to recall you expressed in embarrassing circumstances in Leghorn. It did not seem to affect you at all that you were the butt of the laughter of the fleet, running through the streets, pursued by an irate husband, in nothing but your smalls.’

‘That was before you and I discovered our mutual regard. I cannot be blamed for red-blood prior to—’