An Ill Wind (14 page)

‘There are ways to avoid the press, John,’ said Rufus, ‘as every man aboard will tell you.’

‘Not in a port, Rufus, you would need to go inland to be really safe and I don’t need to say what risks you run then, even the Liberties have already proved not to be that – safe, I mean.’

‘But you can get us protections?’ asked Charlie.

John Pearce knew what he was driving at. The men who wanted to execute the warrant on Charlie Taverner, who stood on the exits to the Liberties of the Savoy looking for anyone foolish enough to step outside the safe boundary, would have eyes for a fellow quite different to the man sitting opposite Pearce now. Charlie had kept his hair short before, now he had a pigtail; he had walked like any other soul, now he could not help but sway like a sailor; and his tarred hands might be a shield against arrest: the warrant was issued for a landsman.

‘I think I can, but I would say to you stay aboard
Grampus
until I put them in your hand. But let’s go back to the question Michael first posed. The truth is I have no occupation and little in the way of coin, so I have to find some way of living while the case goes through the lawyers, and I think that will take time, a lot of time if the Admiralty defends Barclay.’

‘So?’ asked Michael.

‘My first job on going ashore is to take a private letter from Lord Hood to the king’s first minister. It was he who got me out to the Mediterranean to rescue you in the first place, and I have good grounds to believe if I ask him for a favour he might grant it.’

‘That favour bein’ what?’

‘Maybe I can get the warrants on Charlie and Rufus lifted or, failing that, find us a berth that will keep us in body and soul and keep us together.’

‘A naval one?’ asked Rufus.

‘Probably.’

‘With pay?’

‘Of course.’

‘You’re forgetting, John,’ said Charlie, grinning, ‘that the first thing we want is to see your back.’

‘The only time you want to see my back, Charlie, is when I am ordering more ale.’

‘For which,’ Charlie replied, waving his tankard, ‘you seem a bit slow to get a’movin’ on, which I seem to recall is your way. You needed a nudge the night we met.’

Emily Barclay had given up trying to read: those papers she had found under Lutyens’ bone saws impinged too much on her thinking and the ramifications of what they would mean were endless. For her husband they would possibly mean a life in hard labour or transportation and, much as she had come to see him in an unflattering way – even if she knew the case to be correct – she yet did not want to see that wished upon him. If he was incarcerated what would become of her? Was it a selfish thought to imagine a life in the shadow of that disgrace, certainly one in which she would have no income, for his pay would cease with conviction, but also one in which she would be left in the limbo of a grass widowhood?

How would she live? No one would take her in as a governess, the only occupation for which she could lay
any claim to be qualified, with that stain of association to her name, leaving her with a vision of a life spent in penury, perhaps as a washerwoman or a seamstress. Then there was her family, what would become of them? The house they occupied, indeed the reason they had been so keen on her marriage, was entailed to Ralph Barclay through a line of obscure cousinage to her mother’s family: had she refused his offer he might have turfed them out. What would happen to his property if he was a convicted felon? Would it be forfeit, would they be rendered homeless?

Raised to be respectable, to never do anything to bring the family name in disrepute, how could her family walk the streets of Frome with this hanging about their heads? If she knew it to be a bit of a backwater, Emily also knew that it encompassed their whole life, and had hers until she came to sea. Many times it had been a duty to visit and give succour to those unfortunates forced into the workhouse. It was all too easy to imagine that was where her parents would be forced to reside, given they had between them only the most meagre of stipends upon which to support themselves, certainly too constrained to allow for the cost of renting a decent house.

The noise of merriment had abated somewhat, what with both coin and bodies exhausted, even those on the fiddle and the flutes sending out weary sounds. The greater noise was of those coming back on board from their exertions in Gibraltar, with much shouting of a
drunken nature, fortunately too indistinct to tell her, as they were telling their shipmates, what they had been about. No one would be allowed to sleep ashore, for if Captain Daws was lax in the article of what happened in his absence, he was not about to allow others a privilege denied to him: no captain could spend their night outside their ship without express permission and he had made that a condition of anyone going ashore this night.

The Pelicans came back aboard as merry as anyone, for their quiet conversation had given away to a move to noisier and more entertaining places. Rufus was grinning from ear to ear, content to be ribbed by Michael and Charlie. John Pearce was inebriated, but still, in his mind, he knew that nothing had truly been resolved. Matters would have to wait until they dropped anchor in whatever harbour for which HMS
Grampus
was headed.

He had no inkling that anyone had been in his cabin until the next morning, when, with a clearer eye and seeking a clean shirt, he saw traces of dirt in the gaps between the planking and places where the caulking had, like almost all of it aboard this ship, moved. Touching, it, smelling it, he then reached into his chest and brought out the tin of earth. Taken from a Parisian graveyard in which he had buried his father, it was to him a talisman, for he had sworn that one day he would return to that spot, exhume the remains of Adam Pearce, and take him home to Edinburgh for burial.

It only took a pinch of that, matched to what he had observed on the floor, to tell him his sea chest had been searched, it also took no imagination whatsoever to guess who might have been the culprit. An examination of Hood’s letter, taken into the cabin and to the stern casements for better light, showed it to be intact, that at least had not been interfered with. But he had to thank his luck that he had left the really important papers with Lutyens…unless?

He was reassured as soon as he enquired: Lutyens looked and they were still where they had been left. ‘Would you do me a service, Heinrich, and keep them there?’

‘You do not see your own cabin as secure?’ the surgeon enquired, his pointy nose in the air, denoting his surprise.

‘Here is safer, brother.’

‘So be it.’ Looking past John Pearce, he said happily, ‘Emily, my dear.’

Pearce turned to look at her, smiling; she had come to ask Lutyens about those papers, but the words died on her lips and she turned and left quickly, leaving John Pearce to grimace to his friend.

Dawn brought on a sore head, not much helped by unexplained excitement, running feet on the deck rather than the accustomed and soporific sound of holystoning, causing John Pearce to go on deck, there to find HMS
Grampus
, seemingly with half the ships anchored in the bay, being made ready to weigh, which was strange given he could feel the wind was gusting uncertainly with no fixed direction. Not on friendly terms with his fellow officers, he was not able to ask any of them why they were so cheerful; in the end it was the master, an older man and less constrained by the captain, who enlightened him to the presence of a levanter, which if it increased in strength would be the perfect wind to get them through the strong east-running current that came in from the Atlantic.

‘See that cloud above the rock, Mr Pearce, the way it
seems to be blowing off the peak towards the west like a triangle? That is a sure sign, and if the wind increases it is even better.’

‘You will know?’

‘For sure, given that there cloud will break away and disperse. Then we will have a right proper wind of strength enough to make getting out as easy as kissing my hand. We shall weather Tarifa with no trouble at all, instead of being obliged to creep along the coast.’

And so it proved, for the wind strengthened to make taut the whole top hamper, the ship heeling over from the pressure, as she cleared Algeciras Bay, to be driven through a choppy sea and out and away from the southern Spanish coast. To the south rose the high mountains of Morocco and, as the master had said, they weathered Punta Tarifa at the extreme range of the fortress thereon. Pearce was reminded of what he had been previously told: that when at war with Spain, Gibraltar was a damn difficult place to get in and out of unscathed.

Ralph Barclay had come on deck and for once Pearce did not avoid his basilisk stare, yet he was taken by something else in that look, almost a gleam of triumph. Devenow and Gherson were behind him, with Pearce wondering which of them had rifled his sea chest, for he had no notion it had been one of the wardroom servants – had they been so inclined they would not have lasted in what was an undemanding position. It seemed to him that he had been at war with Barclay
from the first night he had encountered him and was wont to wonder if that had produced in him an effect that was untoward. Had he become obsessed?

Once clear of the Straits the course was set to cross the Bay of Cádiz – again one which would not have been taken in a time of conflict, Cádiz being the main base for the Spanish fleet – the destination, once they had weathered Cape St Vincent, being Lisbon. Some subterfuge had to be used in the ship’s logs to justify such an act but it was a time-honoured diversion for naval officers, frowned on in public and ignored in private, the Portuguese capital being the place where the mercantile City of London looked for its supplies of gold and silver.

Brought in from South America to both Spain and Portugal, Lisbon was the preferred trading port for British merchants, that nation being an old and trusted ally. Naturally everyone in Europe knew that such precious metals were the lifeblood of British commerce; they also knew that the destination for that specie lay at the end of the English Channel, and quite specifically in the Port of London itself. It was thus no surprise that every enemy privateer’s dream was to take a vessel carrying such large sums of an easily tradable commodity. It was also no surprise that the agents of those London merchants and bankers were disinclined to ship their money in vulnerable vessels.

Thus a trade had evolved in which King George’s warships, frequently passing in wartime between the
Mediterranean or the East Indies en route home, would call in at Lisbon to pick up cargos of gold and silver. To utterly avoid risk in trafficking such money was impossible, but a well-armed Royal Navy vessel was better than any poorly armed and manned merchantman, and it was well worth the bullion traders’ while to pay naval captains one per cent of the value of what they carried: a tempting reward which had, over time, come to be seen as almost a right.

John Pearce was no stranger to the avarice of naval officers: if there was one topic to excite a conversation in even the dullest wardroom it was the possibility that the men there might be lucky enough to partake in the capture of a Spanish Plate ship, deeply laden with precious metals and jewels, coming from the Caribbean to Cádiz. The blockade of that port was one of the greatest plums in the gift of the Admiralty, especially for those frigate captains tasked to set a screen out at sea to alert their heavier counterparts to incoming vessels.

The sight of a fleet of Spanish galleons, at a time when the two nations were at war, was the dream of every naval officer. They might talk of glory in battle with enthusiasm, of forcing an enemy combatant to strike and receiving the thanks of the nation, but deep down the prospect of limitless wealth was the greater draw, the kind of prize taken that would set up even a lieutenant for life and make a ship’s captain not just a fellow of independent means, but a person of real substance.

If the dream fulfilled was a rarity, a fee of one per cent of several thousand pounds was not to be sniffed at. So HMS
Grampus
was soon at anchor off the city of Lisbon, with Captain Daws having himself rowed ashore, this time with strict instructions that neither women, traders or entertainers should be allowed aboard, given the time it always took to clear any vessel of their presence. Indeed, there was one other boat making for the shore, carrying, despite their protests, several women who had come aboard at Gibraltar and managed to conceal themselves from the master-at-arms, his mates and the marines whose task it was to clear the ship. The excuses for stopping at Lisbon were varied and well worn, but delay was anathema to the men who ran the navy.

Daws came back aboard in a patently obvious fury and, as always, the reason for his anger spread through the ship with remarkable speed. A frigate, HMS
Fury
, on her way back from Calcutta, sailing alone instead of escorting a convoy, had been in the week before and scooped the pool. She had weighed for home with near half a million in bullion tucked safe in her captain’s cabin, and since no more specie had come in from South America, Daws was obliged to depart Lisbon empty-handed. That there was no sympathy for him was natural and that extended from the meanest swabber to the premier: captains were not obliged to share their one per cent and thus rarely did so.

So it was back to deep water and a course set
north, and with no land in sight the ship settled into the familiar routine: the decks were cleaned, swabbed and flogged dry every morning before the hands were sent to breakfast; following that meal, the various tasks detailed by the premier were carried out on sails and rigging, interrupted by slight adjustments to the sail plan. Then came the piping of the hands to dinner, at which point he was obliged, as he too ate in the wardroom, to endure the way conversation flowed around, but did not include, him – something he accepted with annoying equanimity, though occasionally he was tempted to speak when one of their number mouthed some patent absurdity. As soon as he had consumed his food he made his way to the deck, thus relieving them of his presence and his own ears of their dull conversation.

The days the guns were run in and out in dumbshow to exercise the crews were worth attention, each action timed and commented on by a watch-holding Captain Daws, poor results getting the lieutenants in charge a roasting, the next attempt expected to show visible improvement, for here was the seat of British naval superiority, the ability to load and fire their cannon faster than any enemy and to sail their ship with greater skill of manoeuvre. There was boarding practice to follow, as well as the concomitant need to rehearse how to repel the reverse act, which had the deck full of men supposed to be fighting in dumbshow, but using it to entertain themselves or settle scores, which gave work to Surgeon Lutyens.

Pearce also took great interest in the fencing practice carried out by the lieutenants and midshipmen, and since no one barred him from instruction he took to aiding the younger mids in their swordplay: valuable instruction, given he had been taught in Paris by a master of the art. Odd how his competence produced on the faces of his wardroom companions looks of malevolence: they did not care for the notion that this upstart had any ability at all.

Each noon the midshipmen gathered with their sextants to shoot the sun at its zenith, thus marking the beginning and end of the naval day, and he had to admit some of these boys did that task with an aplomb he would struggle to match. Then it was back to the schoolroom for those not on watch, to attend their lessons in mathematics and navigation, that followed by a certain amount of skylarking in the rigging.

Given the master was not ill-disposed towards him, Pearce talked to him often, asking about the sail plan and why various strips of canvas were being employed and not others, discussing the state of the sea and currents, learning by absorption those things which stood as the accumulated knowledge of generations of seamen, acutely aware that he was lacking in the deep learning that made for better than competent sailors.

They encountered no ships going north but many passed them heading south, including one massive convoy which included East Indiamen of the same size and displacement of the ship on which Pearce stood,
each deeply laden with goods that, all told, must have run into millions, and even he could see they had suffered some recent storm damage and were undergoing floating repairs.

Two days later they came across further evidence of a heavy storm, when the lookout aloft warned of a hazard in the water dead ahead, which, when they hove to alongside, looked to be the top half of a mainmast, and included a tangle of rigging and ripped canvas. Prepared to let it drift by, one sharp eye spotted something in amongst the labyrinth of ropes, wood and sailcloth, so a boat was put over the side to find what was a dead body, bloated by immersion, but unmistakably a Lascar.

‘Could be off any ship, Mr Pearce,’ said the master, ‘but given we just missed that frigate from the Bay of Bengal, it would not shock me to find he’s from her.’

‘It must have been a hell of a storm.’

‘And thank God we missed it, sir, for we have had enough foul weather for one cruise.’

‘We might have more.’

‘True,’ Mr Ludon replied, looking grim, ‘so let us hope the timbers of old Granny
Grampus
are not too injured by what we have endured up till now.’

There was discussion about what kind of ceremony should attend the interment of a man from the Far East, but, in the end, he was sewn in canvas with a shot at his feet and slipped into the ocean by use of the Anglican rite. For all it was sad, John Pearce saw it
as relieving the boredom, and almost wished he had duties to perform to keep him occupied. With Michael, Charlie and Rufus he could exchange only a few brief words: naval convention discouraged chats between the lower deck and officers and there were precious few places on a ship that were not under observation by someone.

Nor, without permission, could he go aloft, for that required a nod from the quarterdeck and he would not ask for it. And like a leitmotif, day in, day out, and at night as well, came the clanking sound of the pumps, as the endless battle to keep at bay the level of the water in the well went on.

‘I know you are feeling better, husband, just by the colour of your cheeks. There is blood where so recently there was pallor.’

‘I still feel great pain, Mrs Barclay, and, as you know, I still require the surgeon to treat me with tincture of laudanum.’

‘I should have a care not to rely on it too heavily. Mr Lutyens tells me he has known of cases where patients, once they have formed the habit, cannot rid themselves of it.’

‘I hope you know me well enough to discern that I am of a stronger character than that.’

Emily had watched the fencing practice on the foredeck as much as anyone and she could see the similarity to what was taking place now: verbal thrust,
conversational parry and no intimacy whatsoever. They were not in the least comfortable in one another’s presence and she lacked either the will or the inclination to alter that state of affairs, while underlying everything was the knowledge she had acquired so surreptitiously while the ship lay at anchor.

The notion of telling her husband had occurred to her: forewarned he might be able to evade some of that coming in his direction, yet she could no more talk of it to him than she could to John Pearce, and the longer that went on the harder it became. Several times, seeing him on deck, and knowing he was well disposed towards her, she had thought to plead that he drop the matter for the sake of her and her family, but the words would no more come than they would now, and this to the man she should tell. Whatever else, they were bound together by the tight bonds of holy matrimony.

‘My dear, we cannot continue like this.’ That he had spoken shocked her into paying attention. ‘I am aware that I have in some way offended you, but I am forced to counter that you have likewise distressed me.’

Tempted to say, ‘by pointing out your failings,’ she remained silent.

‘I have some hope that time will heal the rift between us, and I also know that continued propinquity will not serve that aim. I refer, of course, to you accompanying me to sea to share my cabin.’ He moved his stump. ‘This will heal in time and I have high hopes of another command – perhaps
something of the nature of
Grampus
might be seen as my due.’

Suddenly he smiled, but it was more of a rictus grin than truly anything warm: he was so obviously thinking of his own future happiness, not theirs.

‘Then I can only wish you joy of it, sir,’ Emily replied.

‘Naturally, when we land in England I will require a period of convalescence and that will have to be taken at home, though the waters in Bath will not be out of the question, given they are efficacious, but…’

She knew she had to pick up on his silence. ‘You are concerned, sir, that my behaviour may embarrass you.’