Any Approaching Enemy: A Novel of the Napoleonic Wars (7 page)

Talmage nodded somewhat dully. “I only want do to my tudy,” he repeated. Then, apparently thinking he might have left something out, he added, “efficiently,” and another word that might have been, “unhappy,” although in what context, Charles could not imagine.

Charles glanced at the bottle. “Is this all you’ve had to drink?” He held the bottle up to the light and saw that it was about three parts in four empty. That wasn’t so bad.

Talmage bent down to reach under his chair and came up with a second bottle, and then a third, both devoid of liquid. “Sead doldiers,” he explained without emotion.

“I see,” Charles said. “You’ve certainly done yeoman’s work here. Can you stand?” He signaled to a wardroom servant, and the two men helped the lieutenant into his cabin, out of his uniform jacket and shoes, and onto his cot. “I expect you on deck tomorrow morning as usual,” he said, but realized that in all probability, none of his words had made much of an impression. “Fetch a bucket and put it beside the bed,” he said to the servant in an effort to be helpful. “I expect he’ll soon be returning most of the wine, and his dinner, too.”

The following dawn came golden bright under scattered white-bellied clouds and over the same placid blue seas. Talmage arrived on deck with the forenoon watch, red-eyed, pale, and tight-lipped. Charles greeted him with an observation about the beauty of the day and received a grunt in reply. A second gesture to open normal communications received a similar acknowledgment. Charles found this annoying but decided that his lieutenant probably needed a little time to recover his sea legs, as it were. He let it go and spent the remainder of the watch with Winchester, exercising the men at the guns, trying various combinations of wormers, spongers, loaders, and rammers. Reluctantly, he came to the conclusion that there were only so many ways to serve a cannon and that trying to overrefine it probably did more harm than good. He did discover, almost by accident, that if a fiddler were playing “Rule Britannia,” the crews would get into a kind of rhythm, and the faster the fiddler played, the quicker the guns went in and out. He tried “Hearts of Oak” with similar results, but the effects of both were marginal, and he didn’t see how it would serve in the chaotic din of battle in any case. In the afternoon he had the crew practice in the rigging and on the falls for a change of pace. Significantly, no new sails were sighted on the horizon—no sign of Nelson, the other seventy-fours, or Pigott. Since it seemed unlikely that all of the larger ships would have vanished in the storm, he thought Bedford’s theory that they had gone on to Toulon increasingly likely.

That evening, after his supper, he decided that it was past time for him to write to his wife. The two letters he had received from her at Gibraltar were as yet unanswered in the flurry of last-minute preparations to leave the port. He retrieved the envelopes from his desk, removed their contents, and carefully smoothed the papers out on his table. For a long moment he looked at her neat, precise handwriting. He could hear her voice in his mind and almost see her face before him, her soft, fawn-colored hair, her expressions and smiles and laughter. His heart ached as he picked up the first, which he had read many times before. It began:

17th Day, first Month
Tattenall

My Dearest Husband,

It is less than one week since thou left for the sea and how I miss thee already.

There was a lengthy paragraph in this vein that he read and reread, then read carefully once more. She went on that the weather had turned very cold, with much snow, and the land was a beautiful white as far as the eye could see.
How about that,
Charles thought.

I have conversed with thy brother, John Edgemont, about purchasing a quantity of fodder, as some of thy crofters’ chattel can obtain little succor in the deep cover.

That was considerate, if somewhat extravagant. It was like her to be concerned about the welfare of others. His brother would probably reluctantly approve, moderating the expense as much as possible. It would cost him, but little harm would result so long as his tenants didn’t come to expect it every winter.

Toward the end of the letter, she mentioned, apparently as an afterthought,

I have found no schooling for the children of thy crofters. From my inquiries, many lack even an elementary knowledge of their letters or sums. I am troubled about their advancement.

What advancement?
Charles wondered. They were the offspring of the tenants on his estates and would replace their elders in time. That was their advancement, as it had been for countless generations and would be for generations to come. He decided not to worry unduly about it. His brother would see to it that she was restrained in her adventures and did nothing so extravagant as to build a schoolhouse or hire a tutor.

The final paragraph returned to her affection for him and how she wished he were near, even referring to waking beside him and feeling his warmth. Charles read this over repeatedly. He sat staring at the words for some minutes. She had signed it:

Thy loving and affectionate
Penny

It almost made Charles’s heart break.

The second letter was a little more difficult to fully fathom. Dated “14th Day, Second Month” (but without referring anywhere to Saint Valentine), it began with the familiar endearments and expressions of tenderness. He read these carefully. She went on about her plans for a school and the hiring of a schoolmistress to see to the crofters’ children’s betterment. Charles guessed that she had not yet spoken to his brother. He felt badly that she would be disappointed. She had evidently had discussions with her parents (her father owned a large water mill near Gatesheath), because she wrote of the need for a new mill located near his estates, to more conveniently attend the requirements of his tenants and the Tattenall community, and to ensure that all received fair profit for their produce.

Charles shook his head in amazement. He didn’t know exactly, but he thought that constructing a mill would surely cost in excess of a thousand pounds and was well beyond anyone’s serious consideration. He didn’t know where the local farmers had their grist milled, and he wasn’t worried about it. He chuckled out loud as he envisioned his brother’s astonishment at any such suggestion.

There was a part of the letter just before the end that he didn’t fully comprehend. Penny alluded to some papers, saying that she would “converse on this with him” when she next visited. He guessed that “visited” was another of her quaint Quaker expressions—like “labor with” for argue, or “First Month” for “January”—that referred to her letters and that at worst she planned to write, enlisting his aid in her negotiations with his brother. That would present no difficulties, he decided.
Louisa
would not expect to receive any mail so long as she was deep in the Mediterranean, and even if they did, it would be months before he could be expected to respond. He was sure that the issue would have blown over by then.

The letter ended with slightly abbreviated expressions of her tenderness and affection. He uncorked his ink bottle, laid out a clean sheet of paper, nibbled at the end of his quill, and that night penned four paragraphs on how much he missed her.

CHARLES WOKE WITH a sense of anticipation on the morning of their third day, the last day, according to Bedford’s thinking, that they were to remain waiting at the rendezvous. As it did every morning when they were at sea, dawn broke with the cannon run out and the men at their battle quarters, on the chance that an enemy ship might have stumbled into their midst during the night. The horizons were clear, however, and the guns were immediately housed and secured.
Louisa
began her daily routine.

Charles washed and, as he had three days of stubble, allowed himself to be shaved by Attwater. After a quick breakfast, he called for his signals midshipman, Isaac Beechum, and sent him across in the gig to inquire of Captain Bedford whether he still intended to take the three British ships to Toulon in search of Nelson, and if so, at what time. Beechum, eighteen, rail-thin, gangly, and in Charles’s opinion the more promising of the two young gentlemen on board, returned a half hour later with the message that, pending unforeseen events, they would sail at noon.

Charles considered what he should do with the time. He thought he had no pressing business to attend to, when it occurred to him that he had not kept up with his entries in his captain’s logbook. It was an irksome task, and one in which he frequently found himself in arrears. His was not even the ship’s official log. That was the responsibility of the master, and Eliot, he knew, kept a meticulous daily record. Charles did what he always did—called for Eliot to bring his log and then sit in Charles’s cabin while the captain copied the missing entries in his own hand. He discovered that his most recent entry (or the last time he had reproduced Eliot’s recordings) had been a full week before the storm struck. Charles made his entries, promised himself to be more diligent in his log keeping, and passed the master’s original back across the table.

“Thank you kindly, Mr. Eliot,” he said sincerely.

“Humph.” Eliot, who did not approve of this practice, took up his book and started for the door.

“Mr. Eliot,” Charles said sternly, which caused the master to stop, turning to face him. “That would be ‘Humph,
sir.
’ I trust I won’t have to remind you again,” he said, then laughed out loud. Eliot himself burst out in guffaws, and the two were only just regaining control when they heard a call from the tops: “Deck there, sail fine on the starboard bow.”

Charles snatched up his hat and was climbing the ladderway to the quarterdeck when he heard Winchester ask, “How many sail?”

“Just the one, sir,” the lookout reported. “There’s something strange.”

Charles searched the horizon from the starboard rail but saw nothing. “What’s strange?” he called up.

“It be hard to say, sir. She’s ship-rigged. Looks as though she has no topmasts at all. She’s sailing under her fore and main courses, not even a jib.”

It took Charles a moment to digest this before it came to him:
Emerald.
He swore under his breath. He was not looking forward to a reunion with Pigott, not after ignoring his orders at the onset of the storm. He had a suspicion that having been in the right would earn him little gratitude. If only Bedford had decided to sail at dawn instead of waiting till noon, all of this could have been avoided.

Emerald’s painfully abbreviated outline limped slowly over the horizon toward the rendezvous. Through his glass, Charles could see that not only had her topmasts been carried away, but her bowsprit was gone, and she carried a jury-rigged foremast. It appeared that all of her ship’s boats had similarly disappeared. Awkwardly,
Emerald
hove to a cable’s length from
Terpsichore
and ran her signal flags up to the mainsail yardarm:
Captains report on board. We would have to,
he considered as he descended to his gig.
Pigott has no way of coming to us.

Charles ascended Emerald’s side steps after Bedford and before Bevan, as precedence demanded. Captain Pigott, a man with an unfortunately high forehead, a pinched nose, and close-set, watery blue eyes, was waiting as he gained the deck. “Ah, young Captain Edgemont,” he said, with a heavy emphasis on “young.”

“Yes, sir,” Charles answered, smartly touching his hat.

“Before you even start, I’ll have none of your excuses, damn your eyes,” Pigott pronounced. “I’ll not have any junior captains deciding which of my orders they choose to obey and which they don’t. I am most displeased. I intend recommending to Admiral St. Vincent that you be hauled before a court-martial. What have you to say to that?”

“Sir—” Charles began, intending to be contrite.

“Captain Pigott,” Bedford interrupted, “His Majesty’s Navy is of little use at the bottom of the sea. Edgemont did try to warn ye of the approach of the weather.”

Pigott glared at Bedford. “I’ll have no excuses. No excuses. None.”

Bevan took a step forward and touched his hat respectfully. “Begging your pardon, sir,” he said, “but Captain Edgemont is a proven officer with a distinguished record. Jervis himself promoted him to captain.” He hesitated, then added, “If there is to be an official inquiry, it will certainly include the nature of the orders he evaded and who issued them.”

Pigott blinked at this. Turning once more to Charles, he said, “Well? What have you to say for yourself?”

Charles took a deep breath, well aware that he was very junior to Pigott and that an inquiry before St. Vincent might not go as well as Bevan thought it would. “I was doing my duty as I thought best for the safety of my ship and the good of the squadron, sir,” he said directly. “I saw a danger that it seemed your lookouts had missed, and I acted accordingly. Of course, if you wish to request a court-martial, I shall willingly submit.”

Captain Pigott looked around at the three junior officers and equivocated. “I don’t mean to be harsh, young man,” he said with deep condescension. “A stern warning may be all that is required, and I trust you will benefit by it. In this case, I’ll put your behavior down to youthful indiscretion. But I warn you in the strongest terms not to let it happen again.”

“Yes, sir,” Charles answered, biting back any further thoughts.

“Now, then,” Bedford announced loudly to change the subject. “Do ye know where Admiral Nelson and his three seventy-fours are?”

“I do not,” Pigott answered tartly. “I had assumed them to be here.”

“Nary a trace,” Bedford said. “I expect they’ve gone on directly to Toulon to see if the Frenchies are out.”

“Nonsense,” Pigott replied. “I have always doubted that Nelson was a wise choice to command this squadron. He’s far too impetuous, in my view. But even he wouldn’t attempt so foolish a course. In all probability, he’s returned to Gibraltar for repairs. A fierce storm it was; could have done any amount of damage.” He glanced doubtfully over the rail at the other captains’ relatively whole ships. “Or perhaps he’s pulled into a cove somewhere to effect repairs and is yet on his way here.”