Tenacious (15 page)

Bampton smiled. “My guineas are on that before August we’ll have a new commander—mark my words.”

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• • •

Renzi did not go below. There was a pleasing solitude to be had when the men went to breakfast: thoughts could flow un-checked to their natural conclusion, and the deck, with a minimum of watchmen about, was his for the walking.

His mind strayed to the letter he had received in Gibraltar: it was from his father who, in his usual bombastic manner, had insisted that he come home to discuss his future. There was little chance of that in the near term but there was no point in putting it off for ever. The next time he was in England he would return to face him.

Peake, the chaplain, came up from below, interrupting his thoughts. “Nicholas, I was told you always took the air at this time,” he said, in his precise manner. “I do hope you will not object to my company.”

The deck lifted in response to a comber under the bows and he lurched over to grip a convenient downhaul. A double crossing of the North Atlantic had not improved his sea-legs.

“You are most welcome, Padre,” Renzi answered warmly. He had respect for the man, who was the most nearly learned of all aboard, one with whom he could dispute Rousseau, natural law, ethics, or any other subject valued by an Enlightened mind. The chaplain had volunteered for the sea service as his contribution to the struggle against France but, with a life perspective best termed literal, he was not preserved from the torments of midshipmen and irreverents by a saving sense of humour.

“As Milton has it, ‘In solitude, what happiness? Who can enjoy alone, or, all enjoying, what contentment find?’ ” admonished Peake.

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“Just so, Mr Peake. Yet please believe I have a desire at times to withdraw from the company of men—but merely for the contemplation of the sublime that is at the very essence of the sea.”

He had not the heart to discourage a man so manifestly reaching out.

Renzi saw Peake look about doubtfully at the straining sails and hurrying waves. The fleet’s progress west was necessarily against the same streaming north-westerly that had brought them eastward so rapidly. Now at each watch there would be anxious glances to the flagship for the signal “prepare to tack,”

the warning that, yet again, there would be all hands at the sheets and braces for the hard work at putting about. Peake would see little of the sublime in such sea-enforced labour, Renzi mused, then enquired, “You are not enjoying your watery sojourn? Such lands as you’ve seen would cost a pretty penny to experience were you to ship as passenger.”

“I do not value such adventures. Canada, I find, has an . . .

excess of colour, and what I saw of Gibraltar does not spark in me any great desire for sightseeing.”

“Yet you have chosen the sea life?”

“I feel a certain calling. At the same time, I will confess to you, sir, in a sense it weighs heavily.”

“Oh?”

Peake turned to face him. “Nicholas—I think we might be accounted friends? Fellow believers? That is,” he hastened to add,

“in the essential rationality of the objective man when detached from corporeal encumbrances?”

“I warm to Leibniz and his position before that of your Spinoza and his Deductions, Mr Peake.”

“Quite so—we have discussed this before, as I recollect.

No, sir, what I face might be considered a . . . dilemma of conscience.”

“Ah! Bayle and the Sceptic position,” Renzi said, with keen anticipation.

Peake winced. “Not as who should say, sir. I will be frank—in the lively trust in your discretion and the earnest hope that you will assist me in coming to a comfortable resolution.”

“My discretion is assured, sir, but I cannot be sanguine about my suitability to aid you in a matter of churchly ethics.”

“Never so, Renzi. Allow me to set forth the essentials. Since childhood I have been charmed by the
rightness
of nature: such nicety in the disposition of leaves on a stem, musculature in a cat, the flight of a swallow. In fine, Renzi, it is life’s vitality itself that, for me, is of all the world the greater worth.”

He looked closely at Renzi, then out to the immensity of the sea. “Here is the dilemma, my friend. I had an adequate living as curate in a peaceful village in Shropshire, and you may believe that for the quiet and reflective mind there are few occupations that can better that of a country parson.

“When the revolution began in France I was puzzled. Then an
émigré
French family came to the village and I learned of the true situation while attending upon the matriarch, who had lost her mind at the experience.” His voice strengthened. “This is the reason for the offer of my services to His Majesty—that in some way I was playing a part in the defending of my country against such unspeakable horrors.”

“A noble part, Mr Peake,” Renzi murmured.

“But in my time on
Tenacious
I have learned much indeed.

The sailors are rough fellows but in their way are as tender as babes to each other. And the midshipmen, scamps and rascals indeed, but I feel that they act as they do out of a need to retreat from martial horrors to the innocence of their so recently departed childhood.”

Renzi’s eyebrows went up, but he said nothing. Peake drew a
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deep breath and continued, “What I am saying is that I have been privileged to see a species of humanity,
nauta innocentia,
that perfectly displays the qualities of life-cherishing animation that I so value. So you may recognise the anguish I feel when the captain calls for practice with his cannon—
those mortal engines, whose
rude throats could counterfeit the dread clamours of Jove!

“Renzi, my friend, please understand, it causes me the utmost pain when my unruly imagination pictures for me their purpose—

the tearing apart of the sacred flesh of life and its utter and final extinction. Be they enemy of my country, I cannot prevent the betraying thought that even so they hold within them the same vital flame.

“How can I bring myself to accede to my captain’s constant pressing to hurl unrelenting maledictions on the French in sermon and prayer when I find myself in such brotherly commune with their life-force? How can I hate an enemy when I understand only too well what it is to contain life within you? Whatever should I do? Nicholas—I’m torn. Help me do my duty.”

The beat west was tiring and dispiriting, long miles of vigilant ships but empty sea. A distance further than a complete Atlantic crossing, weeks turning to months—and still not even the wisp of a rumour of a vast French fleet.

South of Crete, with the ancient land of Greece left to starboard, they were traversing the width of the Ionian Sea and approaching where they had left with such hopes a long month before. There was now a pressing need for provisions and water. In these lonely and hostile seas the only possibility was the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and of these the closer was Syracuse, on the eastern shores of Sicily.

The hard-run fleet, each ship with the blue ensign of Rear Admiral Nelson aloft, sighted the rugged pastel grey coast of Sicily at last and prepared to enter the ancient port. The sleepy

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town lay under the sun’s glare to starboard, mysterious ruins above scrubby cliffs to larboard. It was a difficult approach with troubled waters betraying rocky shoals extending menacingly into the bare half-mile of the intricate entrance.

Once inside, the spacious reaches of an enfolding harbour welcomed the ships. One by one they dropped anchor. People gathered along the seafront, hastily filled bumboats contended to be first out to the fleet, but with decorum proper to the occasion, England’s union flag arose on each man-o’-war’s jackstaff forward.

But before they could proceed, the local officials had to be placated. It was difficult for the city governor: any favouritism towards the British might be construed as a violation of neutrality by the suspicious French, and at first he was obstructive and implacable. It required an exercise of ingenuity and tact to arrive at a form of words that allowed a show of resistance, after which his attentions could not be faulted.

Every vessel hoisted out her boats for the hard task of watering. The massive casks had to be manhandled from a spring or rivulet ashore and floated out to the ship where they would be finally hoisted out and struck down into the hold. The enthusiastic townsfolk endeared themselves to the thirsty mariners and Renzi’s classical soul when they pointed out the continued existence of the famed Fountains of Arethusa, an aqueduct from ancient times bringing water from the interior to the town and perfectly capable of supplying the wants of a whole fleet.

Kydd was touched that Admiral Nelson with all his crushing worries had noticed that the cask wine taken aboard for the men’s grog issue was being affected by the heat. His orders were that for every pipe of wine two gallons of brandy were to fortify it. He made sure as well that depleted victuals were promptly restored from local sources—lemons by the cartload, endless wicker baskets of greens, and beef on the hoof. In the sunshine spirits rose.

Idly Kydd watched Poulden in the shade of the massive
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mainmast patiently work a long-splice for Bowden. The lad had lost his pale complexion to a ruddier colouring and his gawky sea gait had steadied to a careful stepping. His body was now more lean than willowy, his expression poised and composed.

Voices rose on the quarterdeck, attracting Kydd’s attention.

Mutine
had just entered harbour after another reconnaissance.

She went aback close to the flagship and Hardy, her commander, stepped into her boat. “She’ll have something t’say, I believe,”

Kydd said, vaguely aware of a shadowy world of plots and spies, and the surreptitious allegiances of greed and trade that were the main source of information in this part of the world.

“Probably that the French by now are past Gibraltar,” said Bampton, sourly. He had come on deck at the first excitement and was still buttoning his waistcoat.

The master came up behind them. “
Mutine
showed no signal on enterin’,” he said pensively. “Does this mean she has no news t’ offer?”

It would be beyond belief if this crossroads at the very centre of the Mediterranean, touched at by merchant vessels plying both sides of the sea, did not have some word of the French.

Houghton emerged on deck, sniffing the wind and trying to look indifferent to the tension. The quarterdeck fell quiet as a flagship pinnace approached them. Her youthful flag-lieutenant punctiliously doffed his hat to the quarterdeck and then the captain. There were murmured words as Houghton took delivery of a packet of orders and retired to his cabin. The flag-lieutenant waited.

“Have ye news, sir?” Kydd asked him boldly.

Others edged over to hear the reply. “News? You mean the French forces?”

“Yes.”

“Oh—then no news, my friend.”

“None?”

“No sighting, if that’s what you mean, sir.”

“Goddammit, we still don’t know where the buggers are!” exploded Bryant, pushing past Kydd.

“That is not what I said, sir,” the lieutenant said. Bryant went red, but before he could continue the officer confided happily,

“You should have seen His Nibs when Hardy brought in his report. In as rare a taking as ever I’ve known, capering around his cabin like a schoolboy.”

“Y’r meaning, sir?” barked Kydd.

The lieutenant was now surrounded by eager officers. “My meaning? I thought it was perfectly clear, sir, no sighting of the French fleet anywhere . . . in the western Med. And
that,
to those with the perspicacity to remark it, means they must necessarily be in the east—Sir Horatio was correct in his first assumption.”

“Then—”

“Then, sir, it is quite apparent, if we discount the seas north, around to the east where we have cruised so recently, it leaves only the Levant and the south. Sir, it can only be Egypt.”

“Why, then, did we not sight—”

“We were too hasty in our descent on Alexandria. We hauled past them in the night, Sir Horatio believes, and thus found an empty port. Should we clap on sail this instant we should find them there at anchor within, their army probably ashore. Then, sir, we shall have the
rencontre
we so ardently desire.”

Houghton stepped out briskly from his cabin. “You have heard, then, gentlemen,” he said, with satisfaction. “I can tell you that we sail for Alexandria on completion of stores and, you may depend upon it, we shall have an encounter within the week.”

One by one the ships-of-the-line slipped past the lighthouse and small fort at the tip of the long neck of land upon which old Syracuse shimmered in the bright sun, their next landfall the even
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more ancient land of Egypt. The breeze held and strengthened and the fleet stretched out over the sparkling sea under all sail possible.

Bampton was not persuaded, however. “Still our motions are driven by conjecture—where is your evidence? They are not in the west—but who has considered that, having taken Malta, they are satisfied and have retired back to Toulon? Evidence!”

As if in answer to his words, the fleet stood on for Greece.

With the Peloponnese in plain sight Nelson sent in Troubridge of
Culloden
to speak with the Turkish authorities. The big 74