The Perils of Command (8 page)

‘Mr Palmer’s compliments, sir, but two sail have been spotted on the horizon and the lookout reckons them to be warships by their canvas.’

‘Nationality?’

‘Not yet established, sir, all we have is a sight of their topgallants.’

The yawn from the captain was both studied and deliberately theatrical and if it impressed the midshipman as a sign of sangfroid it failed to fool Gherson. ‘Ask Mr Palmer to alter course to close and please let me know when that has been established.’

‘We know they cannot be ours, sir, given there are none of our vessels in these waters.’

Gherson saw Barclay swell up. But before he could issue a sharp reprimand to the cheeky youngster the lad was gone, with the captain saying, ‘Pound to a penny they are out from Naples.’

It took a whole glass of sand to disabuse Ralph Barclay and take him onto the quarterdeck with Devenow right beside him, for there was a fair swell and he risked a fall while using a telescope. The sightings were hull up now and many an eye was ranging over them.

He had aboard men who had served a long time in the navy and they knew the lines of the vessels they had spotted. They were French by design and, having identified HMS
Semele
as British, if not by name, they soon put up their
helm and ran for safety, having seen her flags and reckoned on her size and armament.

Duty demanded he give chase. He commanded a well-found vessel and one that could be said to be fast for a seventy-four, being very fresh of the stocks and he commanded a crew that had already tasted prize money and were eager enough for more. If frigates, which they were, could normally outsail a ship of the line, luck might come to their aid and carry away something on an enemy vessel, canvas or a spar, perhaps one in panic bearing too much aloft.

Added to that they were running from safety; there was no harbour or bay outside of the southern French coast where they could anchor and not be vulnerable. The meanest tactical mind had to reckon that they would seek to come about and reverse the course in the hours of darkness and that, with luck and the right course, might put the seventy-four within long range of their decks.

‘An opinion, Mr Palmer?’

That made the premier blink; his captain was not one to seek the views of others.

‘We have no notion of their qualities, sir.’

That required no further explanation: were they well manned, for the French Navy had suffered much from the Revolution, most tellingly in its upper ranks? Many vessels seemed now to be commanded by men who had not previously been ships’ captains. How long had they been at sea and where had they sailed to, for warm Mediterranean waters were faster to foul a hull than the cold Atlantic?

If HMS
Semele
could get close enough by a well-worked chase, would a pair of frigates reckon that to fight gave them
a chance of glory – not in terms of gunnery but by being able to manoeuvre more quickly and sting a larger opponent?

‘I think we know the calibre of our enemies, Mr Palmer. They are inclined to avoid battle are they not, which we can see before our very eyes?’

‘True sir.’

‘I think we must pass on what would be a fruitless chase that might take days. We shall raise Naples before we lose daylight, so let us resume our course and rue the fact that we did not come upon yonder fellows close to and at first light.’

The feeling of anticlimax was palpable and even an insensitive soul like Ralph Barclay could feel it, which had him step before the binnacle and glare along the deck as if to challenge anyone to speak or even scowl. That he held while the orders were being given to resume their original course, the sails hauled round and sheeted home, no one willing to catch his eye.

The smirk on Gherson’s face as he passed his tiny cubicle infuriated Ralph Barclay, but the reprimand died on his lips; with what he was about he needed this man too much to chastise him now.

John Pearce was landing at Leghorn by the time HMS
Semele
raised the channel running between the Isla Procida and the promontory of Bacoli, the sun sinking to the west, which meant any attempt to land would have to wait till morning. Such a vessel could not come close to Naples without it caused excitement and long before she dropped anchor in the wide bay word had been sent to the British Ambassador to tell him that a capital ship of his nation’s navy was in the offing.

‘Emma, my dear, we must prepare to receive the man in command.’

‘Do we know of him?’

‘How could we?’

‘A stranger, then. Let us hope that he is of the entertaining variety. Too many of these naval fellows are dullards.’

The Chevalier smiled. ‘I have known you to find one or two entertaining, my dear.’

‘One or two, yes, but no more than that.’

It was a wary, rather than a weary traveller who landed at Leghorn; given the trouble he had previously encountered in the Tuscan port that was to be expected. There was a strong naval presence to support the commissary needs of the fleet but at present no warships in the roadstead, which was a disappointment and led him first to the
pensione
in which he and Emily had previously stayed to leave there his sea chest.

Pearce’s reasons for caution centred on redcoats not blue, soldiers not sailors, for he had encountered much grief from contacts with army men here, though there seemed little evidence of their presence now. Enquiries at the office of the Navy Board, and the Captain Urquhart who oversaw their work, provided no information as to when he could expect a ship, while he had to be circumspect as to how he had come to be there without one.

Obliged to identify himself he dare not mention HMS
Flirt
or the mission on which she had been engaged, while the excuses he provided, hastily conjured up since he had not previously thought of the need – that he had become
separated from his vessel by ill health – sounded feeble to his ears and judging by the expression that greeted his explanation was scarce believed.

‘Well,’ the captain said, his manner decidedly unfriendly, that being enhanced by a dour and heavy Scots delivery, ‘your name is known, sir, in these parts and not in a good way.’

‘I am at a loss to know why that should be particular to Leghorn.’

‘Come, sir. You are by common consent not qualified for your rank. Even monarchs make errors. Do not deny that you induced a near riot in the port – one that, fortunately, did not end in fatalities, though it sailed damn close.’

Pearce declined to protest, for the first accusation was something fruitless to respond to, while the other left him genuinely confused. ‘I have no idea what you are talking about.’

‘Come, sir, do you really expect me to believe such a plea? The bullocks you set your men upon made sure the whole town knew who to blame.’

‘For what, sir?’

The tone John Pearce used then, one of rising anger, met with even less approval than his name. Urquhart flushed angrily and his response was spat out with real venom, a hand slapping down on his desk.

‘It pains me to mention, and I would scarce want to allude to it, but I find I must do so: the way you embarrassed the service by your behaviour in a duel. That the mere engagement is reprehensible and forbidden is a matter of fact, sir, but much worse is that you chose a low trick to end matters in your favour. Not content with that you then had the very man you fought and his companions set upon,
assaulted by every midshipman and liberty man then in the harbour.’

‘Captain Urquhart, I will acknowledge the former charge and I am not happy at the memory, though I will add that when a fellow sets out not to merely draw blood for satisfaction but to kill you, the rules by which gentlemen engage in such pursuits go by the board.’

Urquhart was not listening; judging by his breathing he was struggling to contain himself, close to an outburst that would pass the bounds of acceptance.

‘You do not seem to observe that I have work before me, which you are preventing me from getting on with. Because of that, Lieutenant, I must bid you good day.’

Once outside the building, standing under the fluttering Union Flag, John Pearce was at a loss to make sense of what he had heard and damned annoyed at the way he had been dismissed. Passing through to get to the street he had been eyed with deep suspicion by Urquhart’s underlings, men who must have overheard the exchange in the captain’s office. Tempted to enquire of them, their expressions did nothing to invite questioning, which left him at a loss as to how to proceed.

That, he felt he must do: some deed was being attached to his name and it was even more annoying to have no notion of what he was accused of, while in a port full of Italians layered with Austrians there was a shortage of places to go where he could seek enlightenment.

Walking along the quay, a possible alternative presented itself. Leghorn, as well as being the revictualling port for the fleet, was home to a fair few privateers, many of them English, given letters of marque by the British Crown to
pursue and harass the trade of the enemy for personal gain.

They were a rum bunch held in contempt by their naval contemporaries, which was hypocrisy of the first order. King’s officers chased after prizes with a zeal that matched that of the men they termed predatory wolves. Their objection centred on the freedom privateers had to act at will, their obvious successes adding to the fact that their captures meant fewer opportunities for their naval rivals.

The letters of marque occupied their own part of the port, a small harbour they shared with the larger local fishing boats, well away from the naval dockyard on the far side of the old castle that had at one time protected the anchorage. It was an area into which naval ratings were discouraged from going, and that was with only the most reliable hands allowed ashore.

Leghorn posed a danger that did not apply to many other ports and for that reason some warships never let a soul below a warrant on to dry land. Privateers required sailors as much as the navy and had a strong preference for their own countrymen, for if they suffered casualties – inevitable when they generally had to fight to take their seizures – they found it hard to procure replacements, which made the proximity of a fleet tempting.

Added to the bounty they might offer to recruit a King’s sailor they were adept at keeping them too, able with a change of name to provide the kind of exemptions from naval service that protected their own crews from impressment; if they were forged, and the navy was sure it was so, it was done with such skill as to be impossible to gainsay. If the stream of recruits was low, men still managed to make the transfer for it mattered not what was put in place to prevent desertion: a few always found a way round it.

Leghorn had been a fortified port since Roman times, laid out with new fortifications in the style of Vauban the previous century, with a star-shaped bastion surrounded by moats and canals, and that forced anyone seeking to capture the new citadel into approaches that could be easily defended. Such features forced Pearce into a long detour and in making it he was aware that he was being eyed by small knots of folk that seemed to have time to lounge on corners.

Such creatures might just be innocent locals yet it was known the navy had set men in place to prevent their crews from disappearing, paid crimps whose task it was to spot a wandering sailor and prevent him from passing through to the privateers’ part of the city, by persuasion if it could be achieved, by violence if not.

Coming upon the privateers’ basin John Pearce eyed the berthed vessels with something approaching professional appreciation. Sizes and shapes varied but all the ships were sleek, well maintained, armed with sufficient weaponry and looked to be fast on a bowline. Yet there was no profit in being tied up to a quayside; the making of money was done at sea.

So he had to assume that if their captains and crews were in port it was due to success not idleness, spending what they had gained by their licensed piracy, a truth brought home when, passing under a painted board that named the establishment as the Golden Hind, he entered a tavern that in its layout – low-beamed ceiling and smoke-stained walls – could have existed in the London docks.

The babble of talk died as he came through the door; naval officers were rare in such places and not welcome, judging by the reaction, for they were generally in pursuit of deserters.
He returned their stares, some being glares, with a set face, before finding a rough wooden table at which he could sit.

A serving wench was by his side immediately to place on his board a pitcher of wine, a bowl of olives and some bread. The notion of coming to this place had not fashioned a way to proceed, which left him at a stand, especially when those present chose to ignore him and go back to their own murmured exchanges.

John Pearce had been a solitary presence in a strange setting many times in his life. Had he not entered the Pelican Tavern in much the same manner as he had come to this place, albeit on a foul night? Having been on the wing more than once in his life gave him a steadiness in such an impasse that few could match, as well as a devil-may-care way of acting when no other method presented itself.

‘My name is Lieutenant John Pearce. Is that known to any of you?’

The loud question stilled the voices for a second time and this lasted longer as he was carefully examined. Finally, one fellow stood up and, picking up his own cup of wine, came to sit opposite him. Examining this new companion Pearce was wont to think him a caricature for he matched in almost every way the depictions often seen in the London playhouses of old buccaneers like Henry Morgan and Edward Teach.

His black hair was oiled and arranged in ringlets, some of the lower curls decorated with ribbons. He had a thin but substantial moustache and sharp features though he was far from ugly, quite the reverse, and that handsomeness was enhanced when he smiled. Indeed Pearce thought he was a fellow who would not struggle at all with the fair sex.

‘So you are the infamous Pearce. Have you come to join yonder merry band?’

‘Why would I wish to do that, sir?’

‘Come, sir, your credentials are perfect.’

‘You have my name, but I lack—’

The head tipped a fraction, to which was added a wry smile. ‘Oliver Senyard, at your service.’

‘Owner of one of the vessels I passed?’

‘Lord no, sir, I am a trader. I cannot abide the sea, which apart from rendering me sick as soon as I leave harbour has a strong inclination to remove me from this life when on water and that is before you come across some cove who would dearly like to slit your gullet. Let others take such a risk, I am the fellow who trades their captures, quite a quantity of it sold to your own service.’

‘You deal with Captain Urquhart?’

‘I have that misfortune, yes, but the navy pays well for stores seized from privateer successes.’

‘Can I say your appearance does not match your occupation?’

Senyard grinned. ‘In a piratical setting, sir, it serves to look the part.’

‘If I were to indulge you with some more wine, sir, perhaps you will tell me why my name is so well known and even more to the point, why you use a word like infamous?’

‘Come, sir, that needs no words from me.’

‘I fear it does, Mr Senyard, for I am at a true stand.’

Ralph Barclay was rowed ashore wearing his best blue coat and hat to be much impressed by what lay before him. The Bay of Naples was famous throughout the world for its
beauty as well as the ever-present menace of Vesuvius with its cone smoking to the south, benign-looking at present but with no one knowing when that would alter and it would suddenly erupt.

At a distance the shoreline properties, including the royal palace, looked very fine, while a military eye naturally took in the forts that protected the town and the various harbours dotted along the shoreline: one for the Neapolitan Navy, another for trading vessels and any number of tiny moles to protect the fishing fleet from the sudden squalls common in the Tyrrhenian Sea.

Such an idyll did not survive proximity; close to the buildings, the Palazzo Reale apart, showed much wear and tear, many bordering on neglect, while the smell – not an unusual one for a port, made up of rotting fish and vegetation, added to human waste – seemed to have more power than most. Yet there were occasional wafts of something sweeter, for there was a mass of colourful flora both on the balconies and in the hills behind.

Dropping his gaze Barclay cast an eye over the crew of his barge. Being wealthy he had outfitted them in a manner he thought appropriate to his dignity. Every oarsman had a hat with a bright-red ribbon, a short blue jacket with brass buttons, this over a cambric shirt. All wore matching bright-red bandanas, clean white ducks, and by their feet as they worked the sticks a pair of patent leather shoes to be put on as they accompanied him ashore. There were two marines along and they would guard the barge while it was tied up.

The saluting had taken place at first light, HMS
Semele
acknowledging the royal standard and the locals replying to his own flags, not least that of Vice Admiral Hotham.
His departure from the ship had been noted so there were dignitaries on the quay waiting to welcome him, which they did as soon as Devenow, leaping on to the solid surface first, reached down a hand to aid Barclay up the short ladder.

‘Be quick about your business, Gherson,’ were the last words the captain said as he ascended.

The clerk ignored an injunction made too many times already. He had a decent purse in his coat pocket and that he padded to reassure himself, which occasioned a discreet smile for he reckoned not to disburse it but to keep the contents. Gherson hoped Ralph Barclay had shown his naïvety when he had handed it over.

What good would it do to seek an interpreter and question Italians regarding Emily Barclay? If she was in Naples the people who would be aware of her presence would be English and there had to be a rate of his countrymen in such a busy trading port.

It was also common knowledge that many a rich traveller from home landed up here, usually in search of antiquities from Pompeii and Herculaneum with which to return home and decorate their mansions and country piles. Having been an avid reader of popular journals in London – wishing himself to be rich he was eager to hear of the exploits of those he intended to emulate – Gherson knew of Ambassador Hamilton.

And he had seen him once, he was sure, at an exhibition held at the Duke of Richmond’s gallery in Whitehall, where those in possession of ancient artefacts had been persuaded to display their trophies, Hamilton being but one of many. But he was more than that, and his position gave him a unique ability to indulge his interest.

The man was an avid seeker of antiquities and he was known to regularly dig at the appropriate sites. Hamilton had unearthed so many treasures that he could show off his own finds at the Royal Academy and fill the space provided, to be greeted with much acclaim and not a little envy, but the real point was different. He would be called upon by other collectors visiting Naples, and people who looked for beauty in ancient art would likely not miss it in a comely young woman.