Hervey 09 - Man Of War (33 page)

Peto was on his feet in a trice, reaching confidently for the steps – narrow, weed-tangled, wooden rungs, all that stood between a dignified boarding and a watery one. The weed was cold as well as slimy. He knew to expect it; he had done it so many times, the climb was without trepidation. The trick was to think of nothing but what hands and feet were doing, step by step, rung by rung, until he got hold of the ropes – and even then to think only of climbing, without looking up, and not of the reception which awaited him.

Two mates reached out to support him into the entry port, the boatswain’s pipes twittered, Peto adjusted his hat, saluted the quarterdeck, and with a few expressions of ‘good morning, gentlemen’, followed the first lieutenant to the apartment of Sir Edward Codrington, Vice Admiral of the Blue, Commander-in-chief Mediterranean Station.

‘My dear Sir Laughton, I am much gladdened by your arrival!’

The admiral greeted him with a ready smile and a hearty handshake. Sir Edward Codrington was tall – by several inches over Peto – almost bald, and with a noble, humane face which quite belied his reputation for pugnacity in action. Peto was at once assured of his welcome. It had been many years since they had last met, and in the navy these things mattered. Since Nelson’s day – even before – an admiral gathered his favourites about him, men he could trust to place themselves to advantage in battle, or to know what would be his will in some affair conducted beyond sight of the fleet. He, Peto, had never been one of Codrington’s men. ‘Sir Edward, I’m honoured to join your flag.’

‘Then join me too in a glass of Marsala,’ was the easy response. ‘Sit you down. You are come most carefully upon your hour.’

Peto sat as the steward poured. ‘We are come later than I had wished, Sir Edward, for we were obliged to run down into Surt before a storm as violent as any I saw here. I thought I should be blown to Alexandria.’

Codrington raised a hand to say that it was the way of things. ‘No matter. You are here now. Tomorrow I shall have my captains come aboard and I shall tell you my design.’

‘Ay-ay, Sir Edward. But if I may, there is a pressing matter. Your daughter, Miss Rebecca, is aboard my ship. She and her maid joined at Gibraltar, but since I was obliged to run south of Malta I was not able to transfer her to shore, and neither have I encountered any vessel since to which I could entrust her.’

The admiral looked as if he had not heard quite right. ‘The deucedest thing!’

‘She occupies your apartment, of course, Sir Edward. I wondered when you might have a sloop or other to take her to Malta. And when you yourself wish to transfer your flag.’ Peto omitted to mention the other women on board: that was a detail best not troubled over now. He would simply put them aboard whatever it was the admiral detached for the duty, and no one but her master need be the wiser.

The admiral still looked distant. ‘The deucedest thing indeed, for her youngest brother is midshipman with me. He stands watch as we speak. I shall send him back with you, and then, if you will, in an hour or so you may send him back in turn.’

‘Sir Edward.’

‘And
Firefly
will be returned tomorrow – she’s taking instructions to General Church the other side of the Morea – and then she can take Rebecca to Malta along with my despatches.’

Peto nodded. ‘And your flag, Sir Edward?’

The admiral shook his head. ‘I intend no change – not at this late hour. You’ll see my method when I have the rest of the captains aboard tomorrow.’

‘Ay-ay, sir,’ replied Peto, trying not to sound too dismayed. ‘Shall you come aboard
Rupert
to see Miss Rebecca before then?’

The admiral shook his head again, and with something of a look which said that he was surprised. Not many months ago Peto himself would have scorned it, but now he was discomfited by the notion that Sir Edward Codrington could reject the opportunity of seeing a daughter – especially a daughter with such evident intelligence, and pride in her father. ‘She will be vastly disappointed, Sir Edward.’

The admiral’s mouth fell open. ‘I do not doubt it, Sir Laughton. But I fear I cannot oblige her. We are about to undertake a most delicate manoeuvre at Navarin. One, indeed, which is likely to have no other outcome but a fierce exchange of shot. I cannot go calling on a daughter!’

Peto felt himself thoroughly chastened, but by no means abashed. ‘I could send her to you in my launch, Sir Edward. Midshipman Codrington might escort her.’

The admiral now looked faintly indignant. ‘My dear Captain Peto, I cannot disrupt a ship of war at such a time. And I have Admiral de Rigny to attend to.’

Peto saw perfectly well that having to deal with a French admiral was vexation enough without the distraction of petticoats. He concluded that he could not press his commander-in-chief further on the matter. Rebecca would, after all, be seeing her brother. ‘Then I must beg pardon, Sir Edward.’

‘There is no cause to do so, I assure you, Sir Laughton. My daughter is well, I trust?’

Peto smiled a shade wryly. ‘She is very well indeed, Sir Edward. I believe she was almost glad to be blown south of Malta, for she expresses a great desire to see your squadron.’

The admiral nodded. ‘She has spirit, but I am afraid I am unable to oblige her in that too, for I must have
Rupert
stand out well to the west. I do not wish the Turks see her before it is opportune. I shall explain my purpose tomorrow when the other captains are assembled.’

Peto noted for the first time a certain heaviness in the admiral’s manner of expression. It could not have been anxiety for the outcome of any exchange of fire (there could be no doubt of the superiority of the Royal Navy’s gunnery, nor indeed that of the French and the Russians, compared with the Turks and Egyptians), and he was therefore inclined to ascribe it to the uncertainty of the undertaking as a whole. From what he had learned before he sailed, Codrington’s instructions were damnably equivocal.

‘By your leave, then, Sir Edward, I will call on my old friend your flag captain and then rejoin my ship.’

They had no conversation in the launch. Peto wrapped his boatcloak round himself against the freshening westerly as hands pulled for the
Rupert
. He had much to think on. He was already turning over in his mind what more could be done to put
Rupert
into best trim for Codrington’s ‘fierce exchange of shot’.

His old friend Captain Edward Curzon, from his closeness to the flag, had been able to tell him a good deal of what had occupied the admiral these past months. The instructions which came from London out of the embassy at Constantinople held that the Ottoman Porte would give up its claim to Greece simply because His Britannic Majesty, and the King of France, and the Tsar of All the Russias required it. Yet His Majesty’s ministers would give no unequivocal expression of what should be the course if peaceful persuasion failed. His de facto deputy, de Rigny, Codrington found less than straightforward (could he
ever
trust the French? – there were even French advisors with the Turkish fleet); and Count Heiden – commanding the Russian squadron – was thoroughly spoiling for a fight, for the Tsar’s own wish was to see the Turkish navy crippled.

Peto shook his head, and turned instead to observe the other midshipman in the launch. Henry Codrington was a fine-looking youth, not yet twenty, but not long for lieutenant, he supposed. What pride must the admiral have in such a son – and such a daughter indeed. He thought again of Elizabeth, and wondered . . .

The launch ran silent indeed through the heavy swell, not a word from hands or officer, conscious that the captain thought deeply on some matter.

In ten more minutes the boatswain’s pipes twittered, and then it was the return scramble to the entry port.

‘Convey Mr Codrington to the flag apartment, Mr Sandys,’ said Peto to the lieutenant who greeted him at the top.

‘Ay-ay, sir.’

‘And have my launch ready to convey him back to the
Asia
in one hour, if you please.’

‘Ay-ay, sir.’

Peto turned. ‘Mr Codrington, be so good as to tea with me in half of one hour, along with your sister.’

‘Honoured, sir.’

But Peto did not hear, for he was already taking the companion ladder two steps at a time.

‘Mr Lambe!’ he rasped as he came on to the quarterdeck.

The first lieutenant came up from the waist directly, and with satisfaction in his expression.

‘Evidently you have something agreeable to report, Mr Lambe. Wear away, sir!’

‘I have had the upper battery tackle greased again, sir. It gives us five seconds at least.’

Peto nodded approvingly.

‘Very well, Mr Lambe: dry gun drills immediately after breakfast, and then divine worship.’

Lambe looked nonplussed. ‘Church, sir? But tomorrow is Friday.’

‘I am perfectly aware what shall be the day, Mr Lambe, but we have not held divine worship since leaving Gibraltar.’ Their lordships were by no means as insistent on Sunday worship as they had been during the late war, and Peto himself had not much affection for parsons afloat, despite his filial loyalty to the profession, but they were all a mite closer to meeting their Creator, now, and on the sabbath next there might be preparations . . . or obsequies. ‘A man ought to be able to listen to Scripture and say a few prayers once in a while; and wind and weather have so far conspired to prevent him.’

Lambe understood right enough. ‘Ay-ay, sir,’ he said, resolutely.

‘Have the master-at-arms slaughter the beef. The goats he may spare.’

‘Ay-ay, sir.’

‘And join me, if you will, for dinner, with such others as you judge favourable. It will be the last occasion for Miss Codrington to dine with us.
Firefly
will take her off tomorrow – along with the rest of the women. Though her master doesn’t yet know it,’ he added drily.

Lambe touched his hat before returning to the waist to see the batteries secure. Peto cast an eye aloft. He had left
Rupert
hove to with just the fore-topsail to the mast, but with a freshening westerly, Lambe had partially struck the fore and brought her a point into the wind. In a couple of hours or so, when the launch was come back from conveying young Codrington to the
Asia
, he would have the new watch make sail so that he could take station to windward, as the admiral wished. He went to his cabin.

‘Tea, if you please, Flowerdew; in half an hour, for Miss Codrington and her brother.’

‘Oh, tea is it,’ muttered his steward, fancying that life on a line-of-battle ship was becoming a drawing room affair.

‘Mr Codrington is midshipman on the
Asia
.’

‘Oh, is ’e indeed. A right fam’ly going it is.’

‘But the admiral will keep his flag in
Asia
for the time being.’

Flowerdew said nothing, though he was pleased, since an admiral’s retinue was bound to be vexing. He began taking out a silver service from one of the lockers under the stern lights.

‘And the simnel cake – I think we will have that too.’

‘Oh, cake is it. Quite the tea party.’

Peto was unabashed. He would delight unashamedly in the company of sibling affection. He would observe in it, indeed, something of his own future.

* * *

Peto heard the knock. He looked at his watch: the timing was exact enough to serve for dead reckoning. He nodded approvingly as Flowerdew opened the steerage door to admit Midshipman Henry and Miss Rebecca Codrington. The brother, hat under his left arm, bowed; Rebecca curtsied. Peto returned their salutes and bid them sit, feeling suddenly awkward, which displeased him, for he was a post-captain and plenty old enough to be Miss Codrington’s father.

Flowerdew came to his aid: did Miss Codrington take milk with her tea (the answer he surely knew, for he had served it to her on several occasions)?

She smiled – which Flowerdew had the greatest difficulty in not reflecting – and said that she would.

‘My brother tells me that his ship is not so large as this, Captain Peto.’

Rebecca’s brother coloured, rather. He himself would never have initiated conversation with a post-captain, and especially not with any comparison of ships, no matter how favourable to the hearer.

Peto saw. ‘But the
Asia
is perfectly matched for any fight, Miss Rebecca. You may have no fears on that account.’

‘Oh, I had no fears, Captain Peto. It is just that I had thought my father would come aboard your ship, as you suggested he would.’

‘He will know his flag captain well by now. Curzon’s an excellent fellow. I have known him long.’

‘My brother says it is because my father intends entering the place where the Turkish fleet is anchored and compelling them to leave, and he does not wish the
Rupert
to enter.’

‘Is that so, indeed?’ Peto turned to Henry Codrington with the sort of enquiring look that would have made the stoutest midshipman wish he were at the maintop in a howling gale.

‘I . . . That is what I have heard, sir.’

Peto had heard it too. He had deduced as much when the admiral told him he wished for
Rupert
to stand well to the west until the time was right. But he would not let Mr Codrington off the hook so easily. ‘Indeed, sir? And what else might you have heard?’

Rebecca did not quite see the game. She looked at her brother enthusiastically. ‘Tell Captain Peto about Lord Nelson, Henry!’

Peto turned again to the young Codrington with an air of bemusement, perfectly studied. ‘Lord Nelson, Mr Codrington?’

Midshipman Codrington turned a deeper red. He swallowed hard. ‘Sir, I have heard that my fa—the admiral intends entering the bay at Navarin on the eve of Lord Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar.’

‘Indeed?’ Peto suppressed the urge to speculate aloud what effect such a celebratory manoeuvre would have on Admiral de Rigny and his French squadron. ‘It is only a pity that August is past.’

‘Sir?’

‘The first of August, Mr Codrington – a bay, the enemy at anchor . . .’

‘Oh, indeed, sir: Aboukir, the Nile.’