The Devil to Pay (2 page)

It was the itching of trapped skin that woke him and, careful not to disturb a still sleeping companion, Pearce sought with his fingers to get between the splints to gain some relief. Yet if his arm troubled him, his thoughts were equally taxing for he knew that the notion of any more delay was to court a very poor alternative, namely he might be required to leave his ship here and take passage to Naples, where he could make his case to Sir William Hamilton for the funds he needed.

An even more troubling thought surfaced: that he would meet resistance there and would then be required to return to the fleet and explain his actions, hardly attractive given he had no right to be in Palermo at all; his mission had been to take despatches to Ambassador Hamilton and return with, in the navy’s favourite phrase ‘all despatch’.

Those orders did not mention Emily Barclay who became, as she had been on the voyage out from England, an unofficial passenger, he harbouring the hope that he
could find her accommodation, as well as protection with Sir William and Lady Hamilton. The ambassador’s wife being a lady of an uncertain pedigree and a chequered past was someone, he was sure, who would be non-censorious regarding her present situation.

The first part of his orders he had fulfilled, delivering not only his despatches but also a private letter to Lady Hamilton from Commodore Horatio Nelson, the latter carried out with a degree of misplaced apprehension – the ambassador was privy to the regard in which his beautiful wife was held and not only by that particular officer. Having dined and spent the night at the Palazzo Sessa and with arrangements made for Emily to stay behind, he set off from Sir William’s home intent on fetching her ashore, only to find she had fled his ship and taken passage in a merchant vessel bound for England.

As he set off in pursuit and, angry as he was, Pearce could comprehend her motives: to be a married woman at large in Italy with an acknowledged lover was to court much condensation and even downright hostility, as had been proved by a brief stay in Leghorn, the base from which the Mediterranean Fleet drew its stores. Emily’s husband was a serving post captain, known personally to a number of the officers come to the port to re-victual and by reputation to almost everyone else and that rendered her innate discomfort doubly difficult to bear.

That many did not love Ralph Barclay, he being a man of little humour and a lot of barely disguised resentments, made little difference; the collective of the navy would, Emily surmised, feel the implied insult of his cuckoldry, making it impossible for her to remain in Leghorn and that
was before such problems had been confounded by John Pearce’s own difficulties.

Cruel coincidence had seen an old problem resurface, one which could only be laid to rest by a duel, one in which, in his darker moments, he wondered if what he had done to win the contest could be counted as honourable. Certainly the military officers who had supported his opponent did not think so, which had seen Emily in receipt of vocally expressed insults that went beyond anything that could be considered tolerable. It had also left her lover troubled by his inability to do anything about it. Those same officers, when challenged for their behaviour, had refused to give him satisfaction.

Staring out at the sparkling Mediterranean, the jumbled thoughts induced a complex set of feelings. How had he come to be here in Palermo, indeed how had he come to be entitled to the blue coat he owned and the command he enjoyed? Ralph Barclay was the prime cause and there was some lifting of the gloom at the thought, indeed the beginnings of a quiet smile, that such a dark-hearted bastard as he might, in moments of like introspection, damn himself for his own actions.

It took little to lift Pearce’s spirit and the sweet, melodious singing of a young girl, passing underneath his window, was enough to shift his mood to a happier plane; too many times in his life, when matters had looked desperate, the ultimate upshot had been of benefit. For all the turmoil of his being a one-time pressed seaman, how could he complain of how his life had turned out? By the personal order of King George, he was Lieutenant John Pearce and he had enjoyed in that role a degree of independence
denied to most naval officers, while still sleeping in the bed behind him was a woman he would never have met had her husband not sought to press hands for his undermanned frigate.

Inevitably his mind returned to the main difficulty and the consideration of a possible solution: surely to get HMS
Larcher
to Naples was not impossible, the distance being, even in far from perfect weather, not much more than two days’ sailing on a fully functioning vessel. Right now he was looking out at a benign sea state and a wind that, if it could be felt on his skin, carried no great force.

Could his master rig enough sail to undertake the journey?
Larcher
would take longer but that was not a problem if the weather held. Naples had a proper dockyard well supplied with masts and timber, was a strong ally with Britain in its fight against the French Revolution, so would surely advance him any aid he needed.

The more Pearce thought on it the more attractive the idea became, yet it was not without risk: the climate in this part of the world could be fickle, with winds that could spring up in the turn of a glass to change a benevolent sunlit day into a nightmare of gales and raging seas. The route was also a potential hunting ground for pirates and it was in fighting a pair of Barbary brigantines, in company with the merchantman on which Emily had taken passage, which had brought on his present dilemma.

They too had suffered in the encounter and would no doubt, like him, be seeking to repair the damage. Any place a Mussulman could do so had to be well away from the shores of Catholic Sicily, so he had nothing to fear from them, though there could of course be others, even French
Privateers. Risk and reward lay at the very core of the life of any man in command of a vessel of war and, small as she was, HMS
Larcher
was that. John Pearce had the choice to leave his ship and crew to rot in Palermo or take a chance that good fortune would favour his attempt to get her away.

His daily duty took him to HMS
Larcher
twice; he cheerfully ignored the Standing Order that a captain must sleep aboard his ship. At the cock’s crow to ensure all was shipshape and hear a report on what work would be undertaken that day, then in the evening to see delivered those fresh foodstuffs he had bought in the market for, on such a small vessel Pearce was not only Master and Commander but his own purser, with all the problems and paperwork such a position entailed. Accounts which, of this moment had to be, like his own captain’s log, filled in by Emily if they were to be legible.

It was no good sitting here by this open window and enjoying the cooling breeze on his skin and waiting till the appointed hour. He needed to get back aboard the ship to come to an informed decision, so quietly Pearce donned a fresh shirt and his breeches then, carrying his shoes and his hat, he tiptoed out of the room.

There was no more activity aboard HMS
Larcher
than on the rest of the quay, a place so deserted Pearce could hear the crack of his own heels on the cobblestones. If he was not hot as he had been earlier in his broadcloth coat, it was still a damp-shirted individual who came aboard to no ceremony whatsoever; there was no whistling pipes or eager to oblige faces as there would have been once the heat went out of the sun.

The lack of respect to his rank he cared for not a jot; what upset him was that he could get onto the deck and do as he wished without anyone noticing, in short it could be pilfered at will in a country where the light-fingered locals were particularly adept at thievery.

‘Where in the name of Lucifer is everyone!’

A young hand who went by the nickname Todger, in response to that shout, sprung up from what amounted to the only shade available, a bolt of canvas slung over two of the ship’s cannon, where prior to this somnolence he had been in the process of cutting and stitching to turn it into a sail.

‘Weren’t asleep, your honour,’ Todger barked, knuckling his forehead, his young face deeply troubled.

Pearce knew it to be a lie and the necessary rebuke was just about to be delivered when he recalled that he too had recently been abed and asleep. Todger, unlucky to be left on watch, was a man to whom he owed a slight obligation, a fellow who had been the first to feel his wrath on this commission. The offence in question had to do with the presence of Emily Barclay on a ship too small to properly accommodate her needs.

Todger had regaled his mates with scabrous tale about the certain ability of a Portsmouth trollop called Black Cath to perform a less than salubrious act, which involved a certain bodily function added to the distance it could be projected. This was overheard by Emily, indeed on such a small deck it could be heard by everyone and clearly Todger had forgotten there was lady present and in earshot.

Pearce had reacted badly on her behalf only to be reminded by the person who ought to be offended that she
had no right to be aboard in the first place and then she had insisted he withdraw the punishment he had imposed. The memory of the incident and his own reaction still left his commander troubled and because of that he decided Todger was due some leeway.

‘Then you should have challenged me when I came up the gangplank.’

‘Didn’t see the need, Capt’n,’ the youngster replied, with palpable relief, ‘you bein’ who you is.’

Not for the first time since his elevation, John Pearce was left thinking command was not easy; maybe it was for a tyrant like Ralph Barclay but not for him. He wanted an efficient ship as much as the next man but he could not abide the thought of an unhappy one, which had been the case on Barclay’s frigate. Mind, half the crew on
Brilliant
had been pressed men and disgruntled with it;
Larcher
was different, being manned by volunteers.

There was balance to be struck here; Pearce did not want Todger crowing about getting away with being asleep or the way he had managed to lie his way out of trouble. For the offence of which he was guilty, dereliction of duty, a flogging, according to the Articles of War by which naval life was governed, was the appropriate punishment. It was also one John Pearce knew he lacked the will to impose. On the last occasion he had stopped Todger’s grog.

‘Then damn you, Todger, you better learn to use a bosun’s pipe and some way to greet an officer coming aboard that meets the bill.’

The glance over his shoulder told Pearce that the rest of the men had come up from below, roused out by his yelling and he turned to face them. At the same time Dorling,
the ship’s master, came striding up the gangplank, looking sheepish and slightly flushed, which had Pearce glancing towards the nearby buildings and wondering within which particular one he had been enjoying himself, given it must have been close enough to hear his angry demand.

Had Dorling been bedding a local doxie or had he formed a more permanent attachment in the preceding three weeks, not difficult when tied up at the quayside and the man in charge rarely aboard? Again Pearce felt a stab of inadequacy; he was in command so he should know. It was irritation at his own lack of knowledge that had him speak more harshly and with more confidence than was merited, while also singularly failing to outline what had driven him to the conclusion he proposed.

‘Mr Dorling, it is my opinion we have rested here too long and that we have reached a point of diminishing returns. The natives are playing ducks and drakes with us and will, I suspect, happily do so while we decay. It is my notion that we should have those repairs we still require carried out in Naples.’

Matthew Dorling was a young man, as befitted his position in such a small vessel, but he was also competent and would, Pearce was sure, rise to one day to become master of a ship-of-the-line. He was also the fellow who had saved his captain from more than one folly in the time they had spent together, having been at sea since he was a nipper and was thus the vastly more experienced seaman even before he studied to attain his present position. Pearce should have been asking his opinion not making his statement sound like a decision already arrived at.

‘She will sail like a tub. Anything in the nature of a blow
and we’ll being clinging to what’s left as wreckage.’

The doubt in the master’s voice was as obvious as the gentle murmur that came from a crew who could overhear every word. With his slung arm itching like the devil, his shirt soaked with sweat and his face red from the sheer heat of the day, John Pearce, who could now envisage no alternative, was not in the mood to have his aims thwarted by excessive caution.

‘The hull is sound?’ That got a nod. ‘We can rig a suit of canvas to give us enough to steer by?’

‘With respect, captain,’ Dorling responded, in a measured tone and with a direct look, ‘it is not a course I would adopt.’

‘Yet is it not one we are obliged to, Mr Dorling?’

‘This is a judgement that falls to you.’

In the silence that followed, brief as it was, there was enough time to reflect on that reply, which stood in sharp contrast when set against the attitude Dorling had displayed in the past. Since taking over command, Pearce had enjoyed a relationship not only with the master but also the rest of the crew which was as close to friendly as such an association could be, based on the fact that he made no attempt to hide his lack of deep knowledge that went with a lifetime of naval service.

Initially he had been given HMS
Larcher
as a temporary command, the fellow he had replaced being too ill to carry out his duties, while he was required to undertake a mission to the Vendée on behalf of Henry Dundas, presently Minister for War and William Pitt’s right-hand man. From what he could read and deduce, his predecessor had been a miserly sod that often, in the added role of ship’s purser,
cheated his crew of pennies when supplying their needs as well as being an officer, though not a flogger, only too willing to punish for minor infractions. Pearce surmised that he must have come as something of a relief, for which he had been rewarded.