The Admirals' Game (4 page)

A new sound from the flagship echoed across the bay, a booming reverberation that was not from a fired cannon, but one much louder, which had Digby searching for the cause through his telescope. He could observe little, but there seemed to be a sense of confusion on the quarterdeck, which he had to assume meant the vessel had been hit hard.

‘Flag signalling, your honour,' called the lookout unnecessarily.

Digby shifted his telescope to the mainmast, but, with the advent of an offshore breeze, the message could be seen with the naked eye. Admiral Gell was breaking off the action and HMS
St George
swung round, followed by
Aurore
, presenting to the pontoons the side of the ships that had faced the enemy, allowing those manning them to see the extensive damage they had sustained, with only the lookouts in the tops having any real notion of whether they had replied enough in kind. Just as troubling as the smashed bulwarks and blown-in scantlings, was the signal at the masthead of the flagship, which Digby read out.

‘Engage the enemy more closely?'

There was disbelief in his voice, and John Pearce shared that when he heard it. If a ship mounting a dozen 32-pounders on one side of her lower deck could not sustain the action, what chance did they have, for once
the line-of-battle ships were out of range they would be the only target left.

‘He surely cannot be asking us to move closer inshore?'

‘We have hauled up as much as we dare on our shoreside anchors,' Pearce said. ‘To move in further would mean…'

‘I know what it would mean, Mr Pearce.'

The boats would have to come in, manoeuvre the pontoons to pluck the anchors from the seabed, execute various tows in different directions to get the platforms set again, and all the while they would be at the mercy of that battery – more so than they were now – without even the ability to return fire, for nothing could be done with the cannon being secured.

‘I think that is an instruction you can easily ignore, sir.'

‘Yet our friend yonder is calling in his boats.'

‘He's a fool.'

‘He is a naval officer, Mr Pearce, doing what is required of him.'

‘Sir, we have been lucky so far. That would hardly last in our present position, let alone closer inshore.'

‘Nevertheless, Mr Pearce, you must call in our boats.' Pearce hesitated, until Digby added, ‘I think, that having served together these last weeks, and knowing how I backed you off La Rochelle, I can count on your support.'

John Pearce had no choice but to comply; he did owe him for that, having indulged in an extremely risky
venture to rescue some French officers in danger of being guillotined. On that voyage to the Bay of Biscay and back, acting as escort to the returning French sailors, he had come to know his commanding officer well. He liked Henry Digby, even if he thought him to have a parochial mind, blinkered religious views, and limited experience of the world. That had consisted of a rural life until he was aged thirteen, with some schooling thrown in, followed by the cloistered world of a midshipman's berth in the Royal Navy, and finally his examination and elevation to his present rank.

The fellow seeking to dissuade him had experienced much variation in his life and, in possession of a wider understanding of the world, he had an independence of mind not granted to someone like Digby. Not for John Pearce a normal childhood: he had followed his father around the country as his parent sought to spread his message by pen and speech that the world in which his countrymen lived was a corrupt entity suited to those with wealth, while being inimical to the well-being of those without. Adam Pearce, the so-called Edinburgh Ranter, had a strong sense of his own virtue, a wide range of knowledge and trenchant opinions, plus the benefit of that most precious asset for a man of slender means, a Scottish education, first from the Kirk school, followed by a deep reading of the classics at Edinburgh University, much of which he had passed on to his son.

In consequence John Pearce had a familiarity with much not vouchsafed to a naval officer, or many
other people for that matter. He had met famous men, visited endless towns, stayed in great houses and leaky barns, slept under the summer stars, walked the edge of crowds listening to his father speak, collecting in his cap the means they needed to eat if they were in thrall to the message, looking for the means of swift departure if they were hostile. He had sat close to his father as he conversed among people with opinions of interest, though rarely of wholehearted agreement, suffered with him a spell in the Fleet prison and, forced to flee a King's Bench warrant for sedition, reached his manhood in the hothouse of a Paris newly liberated from the stultifying grip of absolute monarchy.

Yet Pearce also knew Henry Digby to be trapped: decline the order and he would be branded a coward – he could certainly be finished in the service. Obey and he might well perish. To a man in his position there was no alternative, and he was worthy of support so, picking up the speaking trumpet, Pearce called in their boats, this while Digby ordered the cannon to be secured, though left loaded for immediate reuse. As these orders were being issued the French artillerymen were giving the line-of-battle ships a send off to remember.

Even when they were out of range they peppered the sea with shot, throwing up high spouts of seawater that looked like celebration; they were also telling the whole fleet that when it came to supplies, they had enough cannonballs and powder to waste on what was
a demonstration. Finally they let fly with their largest cannon, the culverin which had initiated the Allied response, a single shot that showed the ships were still in range and a warning to stay well away from that particular shore.

The boats came in slowly; clearly the coxswains shared the view that what they were about was reckless. A loud and cursing Pearce had the oars digging harder, for if Digby could be diminished by non-compliance with an order, common seamen could be strung up at the yardarm for the same thing. Seeing them put their backs into their oars, Pearce went to where his Pelicans were now gathered, round the windlass, waiting to ply the anchors, well aware that none of them could swim.

‘I think I's goin' to ask to serve under another officer, Mr Pearce,' said Blubber Booth. ‘Old Latimer here was right, bein' with thee is too dangerous.'

‘I heard you'se already had one barky sunk under you, your honour,' said a sailor standing within earshot, a man unknown to Pearce.

‘Then take comfort from it, fellow, for I am still here. If this damn thing we're sat on is hit—'

‘When,' Charlie Taverner said.

Pearce ignored the interruption. ‘If it begins to break up, find a large piece of timber and hang on to it. Even if our boats can't do the job, there are plenty more out there with the fleet, so rescue will come quick and the water is warm.'

‘Hark at it, lads,' hooted a grinning Latimer. ‘Allas cling to the wreckage.'

‘How can you be so jolly at a time like this?' demanded Charlie.

‘No choice, shipmate, no choice.'

‘Holy Christ in heaven,' cried Michael O'Hagan, who was looking over Pearce's shoulder.

He spun round to see, arcing through the air, trailing two lines of smoke, the first heated shot they had faced. What was worse, before the twin balls hissed into the sea, the whole battery opened up, having now aimed their guns at the pontoons. The air was suddenly full of flying metal, sound, and displaced water.

The first strike was again on their consort, and this time it hit on the barrel of one of the cannon, which slewed sideways, breaking its restraints with such force that it tipped the pontoon into a sudden list. Pearce watched in horror as the two blue coats aboard, a lieutenant and a midshipman, rushed to try and keep it from capsizing them, only to be carried by it into the water as it tipped overboard, sliding into the sea, with them screaming underneath. All around him the sea boiled as ball after ball struck home, and he found himself emitting blaring and blasphemous imprecations at the boats to tow them out of danger.

‘Mr Pearce,' Digby shouted, and Pearce turned to see him standing as if nothing untoward had happened, telescope tucked under his arm, speaking trumpet in his
hand, his stance and face one of total normality. ‘Our duty, sir.'

He raised the trumpet and called to the other pontoon to enquire about the officers, but all he received from that was a negative shrug from men too busy seeing to those who had worked that piece, many of whom had serious wounds. Next he ordered all the boats to steer the damaged platform so they could form one entity, double madness to Pearce, since it increased the size of the target. That it proved to be so was no cause for satisfaction – the French gunners were flushed with success; they had driven off the capital ships so these two platforms were going to be no more than icing.

With the range closing they had elevated their guns, an easy thing to achieve on land-based ramps, so that now the two pontoons were subjected to a more plunging form of fire. The next salvo arced much higher and came down upon them from a greater height, so that when one landed ten feet from John Pearce it shook the whole structure as it went right through the deck timbers, leaving behind it a wide hole with jagged wooden edges.

That the pontoon could stand, though the same could not be said for any flesh close enough to be struck. It was the shots that hit the edge that were the danger, for under the decking there lay the sealed empty barrels that kept the thing afloat. It soon became obvious they did not need to be hit directly; Pearce saw the staves of one barrel fly into the air
from a ball that hit the water close by – break open enough of those and the whole thing would sink from the weight of the guns alone.

Digby had finally realised the situation was hopeless; he was now yelling through the speaking trumpet, ordering the anchor cables cut so the boats could haul them out and clear. When Pearce joined him, he said, though his face was gloomy, ‘There is a way of a difference, I think, between discretion and valour, sir.'

They could see the oarsmen in the boats, all now towing in a seaward direction, near to standing as they strained at their sticks, this while they and the pontoons were subjected to a withering fire. The heated shot that hit Digby's pontoon did not go through the planking; it embedded itself within a foot of the gunner's hutch and began immediately to burn the splintered wood around it.

John Pearce did not wait for instructions; if the powder in that hutch went up they would all be blown apart. Grabbing Michael, the strongest man aboard, he began to wrestle the coop clear of the deck, yelling at the gunner to get out. Digby had called to any man free to find some means of extinguishing the fire with seawater, but it was Charlie Taverner, quick thinking as was his way, who tipped the butt of drinking water onto the embedded ball. It was not enough to prevent it re-igniting, but it was enough to delay the progress of the fire it had started, enough to allow Michael and
Pearce to get to the powder barrel and sling it, and any remaining charges, into the Mediterranean.

The ball burnt away the ragged timber supporting it and it too dropped into the sea below, as agonisingly slowly, still showered with seawater from near misses, the two pontoons were finally hauled out of range.

In the hospital at the very tip of the St Mandrier Peninsula, jutting far out to form the southern arm of the Grande Rade, Heinrich Lutyens carried on his surgeon's work, paying no attention to the near continuous gunfire that made the shutters rattle on every window; it was too commonplace a thing to remark upon, a daily backdrop to the siege. A whole tranche of wounded men had just come in from HMS
St George
, where a
lower-deck
cannon had burst with such force it had blasted its way up through the other decks, maiming and killing from inception and progress; the floor was awash with blood and the tub for amputated limbs had been well employed.

He supposed himself and his patients to be relatively safe even if he also, on one side of the building, overlooked the bay of La Seyne; in terms of strategic value he had
been assured this part of the land mass had little to recommend it to the enemy, the seat of their efforts being directed towards the inner harbour of Toulon. Besides, the peninsula had an easily defended and narrow causeway joining it to the mainland, protected by artillery and soldiers, one that would result in a great effusion of blood if attacked, with little to gain from the attempt. The French cannon might be on the opposite side of that causeway, but their offensive weaponry was aimed elsewhere.

Lutyens had come to this place, technically, as a prisoner, when Ralph Barclay, sent to gain intelligence on the state of the Toulon fleet, had foolishly engaged a superior force of two heavier frigates, HMS
Brilliant
being taken as a prize. His task then had been to tend the wounded from that action, the sailors with whom he had weighed from Sheerness. Released from that imprisoned state when the good folk of Toulon, along with a substantial number of French naval officers, had decided to forsake the Revolution and seek the aid of Lord Hood and the blockading British fleet, his patients were now of many nationalities.

Though a trained surgeon and highly regarded by his peers, Heinrich Lutyens had not forsaken a good London practice for this kind of labour. He had come to sea with a purpose, namely to examine men in a confined and stressful occupation, and to note how they reacted to the various strains placed upon them, this with the aim of producing a treatise on the way the
tension of such an occupation affected those exposed.

As the siege progressed, from being relatively empty his hospital had filled up as the endless artillery duels and the frequent assaults took their toll on the defenders, leaving him little time for leisure and even less time for the project closest to his heart. Here he was surrounded by cases with serious wounds, in a hospital full of souls well worth intimate and detailed examination, but he was too busy to note down even the observations he was being gifted.

Emily Barclay, providing palliative care to those on whom he had operated, worked almost as hard as he did, and Lutyens was pleased to note that she was
sharp-witted
enough to absorb lessons from the treatment she was administering, and so to move from merely being a nurse providing comfort, to a useful member of the hospital. He did, when his work allowed, watch her carefully, knowing that behind that bustling and busy exterior, and with a smile, youth and beauty enough to console the most distressed soul, lay a troubled heart and mind. Though she had never truly been an open book, he knew she had come to have doubts about her marriage, reservations about the actions of her husband, and at other times, a sense that she had betrayed both him and the vows she had taken.

Although not present when Rear Admiral Parker visited her, Lutyens could guess at the nature of the conversation, not least because so elevated and busy an officer could not have called uninvited; Emily Barclay
must have requested he do so. No doubt she had told Parker the same as that which had been imparted to both him and John Pearce; that her husband had blatantly taken part in a conspiracy to have himself exonerated of the charge of false impressment, in the process causing others to utter false testimony and commit perjury, as had he. This while Pearce and his Pelicans were sent by order of Admiral Hotham on a mission to the Bay of Biscay, thus preventing the court from hearing their damning testimony.

Yet each evening she was obliged to return to the frigate on which they both resided, battle damage now repaired, berthed in the inner harbour of Toulon, to share the same main cabin as her husband. That had to be a sore trial, only relieved by her early attendance each morning as a boat from the ship delivered her back to her hospital duties. Even if time had allowed it, Emily would not have been fully open about the pain she was experiencing; that she kept bottled up, leaving Lutyens to wonder at the awkward atmosphere which must attend on any time husband and wife spent together.

With the sun beginning to sink and his sawing, sewing and cutting done, he was doing his rounds, checking on wounds from muskets, bayonets, cannon fire and mere accidents, failing to register that the latest artillery exchanges had ceased, and he was still preoccupied when a boat bearing Lieutenant John Pearce and a dozen wounded sailors tied up at the hospital jetty. What
brought him outdoors was the screams as those most serious were lifted bodily from the thwarts, and that had him heading for the doorway to supervise the placing of such casualties in what had become an extremely overcrowded infirmary.

‘John Pearce, it is you,' Lutyens exclaimed, peering at the smoke-blackened figure in the hallway.

‘It is, and sadly bringing you more trade for those knives and saws.'

Lutyens peered at him. ‘You are not hurt?'

‘The odd singe, but nothing more.'

Those same screams had brought Emily Barclay to the hallway door, yet she hesitated when she heard the voice of John Pearce, though not sure why. There was, of course, a reluctance to be reminded of the admission she had made to him, the fact that she had personally witnessed lies being told at her husband's court martial. There was also the memory of the discomfort it had caused.

But there was something else and she knew that also to be true; the man disturbed her, always had, almost from the very first moment she had clapped eyes on him as he came aboard her husband's ship on that cold, grey morning off Sheerness, a bruised and battered specimen of a pressed seaman, yet one who, in his proud bearing, had stood out from the throng of depressed humanity. The blatant way he had looked at her had caused her husband to strike him for insolence, and a subsequent exchange had seen him subjected to even more severe punishment,
something to which she had publicly taken exception.

In the dispute that followed, John Pearce had opened a breech between her and her husband, yet hard as she tried she could not fault any of his actions; all the blame, to her mind, lay elsewhere. About to turn away, the hesitation brought on by memories proved her undoing, as his eye caught hers and he smiled through blackened cheeks.

‘Mrs Barclay.'

‘Lieutenant Pearce,' she replied, dropping her eyes to avoid his; he was staring at her in the most direct and unbecoming way, as he had on that very first day.

Pearce was gazing at a weary face, but one still
fine-looking
, with wisps of hair, which had escaped from under the mob cap, stuck to her damp brow. Every time he saw her he was struck by her appearance, and every time he wondered at her marriage; how could such a young and beautiful woman consent to marry a scrub like Ralph Barclay, twenty years her senior and not fit to spit on her boots?

He had to forgo the pleasure of staring at her as the casualties were brought in; duty to these wounded sailors took precedence and besides, Lutyens had already started on the surgery.

Out in the Grande Rade, in clear sight of the hospital in which his wife was working, Captain Ralph Barclay paced the quarterdeck of HMS
Britannia
, wondering why Admiral Sir William Hotham, whose flagship this
was, had, so late in the day, sent a peremptory order calling him away from his duties. Given he was presently stationed at Fort Malbousquet, the central bastion of the defence and the one now at risk from that damned culverin sited at
Sans Culottes
, he had watched, through a telescope, the latter part of the artillery duel with some interest, while being able to see perfectly clearly that it was having only a very limited effect.

Certainly the walls of the bastion were damaged, but not so much that they could not be repaired overnight, which meant a daily repetition of what had just occurred, not a duty he would personally enjoy, given it was hard grind for little reward. In mentally seeking a solution, he had wondered at the use of such heavy ships, with their deep hulls, which confined the areas in which they could operate. It might be best to use smaller vessels that could get closer inshore, like his own frigate, which would also enjoy the advantage of being smaller as targets.

Now the gunnery had ceased he was left to thoughts on his own problems. Could he be in some kind of trouble? He could think of no reason to be so, indeed he had no idea if he needed to be at all nervous of the forthcoming interview. Yet a sense of impending tribulation dogged him; it was part of his nature, and had been since the day, twenty-five years before, when he had joined King George's Navy as a tremulous midshipman, and entered upon a service that was harsh to those of tender years and nerve-racking to those who aged in the service.

Life had not been easy for Ralph Barclay as he
progressed to the rank of lieutenant, and he had spent too many years in that category, often serving with captains who had scant regard for the personal feelings of those under them, or any notion that competence – for whatever else he was, Ralph Barclay was a good sea officer – was worthy of reward. Finally, thanks to his then patron Admiral Sir George Rodney, he had made it to master and commander, eventually being made post during the American War and entering upon that list of captains which would see him, as long as he survived, an admiral himself one day.

Yet the road still seemed hard; he was not, he reckoned, a lucky soul. Others – his fellow officers – were, and he had a great deal of difficulty in hiding his resentment of those he saw as either favoured by circumstance or interest. The likes of Nelson, to Barclay's mind a pint-sized popinjay, were forever being sent away on independent cruises, which presented opportunity, perhaps a single ship action that would warrant a gazette, at the very least a chance to take enemy prizes and earn some money.

He had been obliged to fight all his life for every step of advancement; no great landed magnate or powerful politician pressed the Admiralty to favour him, nor had he, prior to the present conflict, enjoyed the kind of opportunity which elevates a man in the service. Even Rodney, the admiral to whom he had first pledged his allegiance, had died, leaving him adrift without that most necessary career factor, a senior naval sponsor.

Yet that had appeared to change; on his present commission he had enjoyed some freedom from the fleet, had taken a couple of prizes, which had eased his most pressing concerns over money. The other piece of good fortune he felt had fallen to him was his marriage to his young cousin Emily. Yet that, from what had been a bright beginning, now seemed to have soured. She had gone from a meek and obedient newly-wed spouse, frightened to lose his good opinion, through small acts of divergence to downright opposition, and all because of a rogue who deserved more punishment than Ralph Barclay had ever been able to mete out to him.

He now reckoned that he had done wrong to bring her to sea with him in the first place, yet it had seemed the correct course of action when he was first offered his frigate. Money at home, after five years without a ship and on half-pay, was so tight his door was forever being rapped on by unpaid traders. Aboard ship Emily cost him nothing; at home she might, unsupervised, seriously increase his indebtedness. It was galling that as the threat of that penury had receded, so had the depth of her respect.

Another part of that altered luck might be the man he was waiting to see, who had taken on the role of his new naval sponsor. Sir William Hotham had been in receipt of a favour from Ralph Barclay, and he, in his turn, had undertaken to replace the patron now deceased. He knew he could look for no favours from the
commander-in
-chief, Lord Hood, who had hated Sir George Rodney
when he was alive, and had no time at all for any captain the late admiral had favoured. Given, and it was no secret, that the fleet was riven with dissension in the structure of the command, a level of protection was no luxury, it was a necessity.

There was no reason he could think of why his situation vis-à-vis Hotham should have changed, yet being by nature a worrier he could not help but feel the certainty of such support as the man proffered was tenuous; admirals could be fickle creatures, inclined to put their own interests well to the fore, with a damn to whoever got caught in the backwash when any support was missing.

‘Sir,' said a slip of a midshipman, raising his hat. ‘Admiral Hotham will see you now.'

The boy nearly recoiled at the angry stare his request produced, which brought home to Ralph Barclay just how deep had been his brooding. Forcing himself to smile, he indicated the boy should proceed, following in his wake down the companionway to the maindeck, crowded with sailors at their mess tables, set between the tightly bowsed-up cannon.

Entering the spacious great cabin, Ralph Barclay was struck, as always, by the well-appointed nature of the place: good furniture, paintings of real quality on the bulkheads, not least a Reynolds of Hotham in full dress uniform, while the admiral himself was just as well groomed, albeit in plainer garb. He had on the table before him a sheaf of papers, and in the middle, given he
was fond of his belly, lay the usual bowl of ripe fruit.

‘Captain Barclay,' he said, indicating that his visitor should sit down. ‘Forgive me for just one moment.'

Having obliged, and sat opposite him, Ralph Barclay indulged in the useless pursuit of trying to read his superior's mind, struck by the inadvertent and unwelcome thought that there were those who wondered if the man had one to read. William Hotham, curiously nicknamed Hotspur, was given to long and contemplative silences, which irritated more rapid thinkers. Opinion differed on whether these ruminative interludes were brought on by deep intelligence or a telling degree of stupidity. It was in the midst of such guilty contemplation that he found himself staring into Hotham's watery blue eyes, and he fought to compose his features lest they reveal his disloyal peregrinations.