The Admirals' Game (13 page)

‘You are to tell no one of this, Pearce,' Parker insisted.

‘Not even Lieutenant Digby?'

‘Especially not Digby.'

‘Then I am at a loss to see how I can get to see the Queen of Naples without him and without some explanation.'

‘I agree such a thing will require a fertile imagination,' said Hood, deliberately laying his hands once more on the court martial papers. ‘But I am sure that is one attribute you possess in abundance.'

‘Enough eyebrows were raised when you sent for me this very morning, Lord Hood.'

The admiral ignored that. ‘Once you have delivered your message, your ship will take on the dispatches to Tunis. Having delivered them you will return via Naples to inform me of Queen Caroline's decision.'

‘On your return,' said Parker, ‘and regardless of the outcome, you will be left alone with a quill, ink and those papers.'

‘I was promised a look at them before.'

‘Not promised, Pearce,' Parker replied smoothly, his round face bearing that satisfied look, which Pearce found irritating. ‘Let us say it was alluded to. This time is different. Once back, and your fair copy made, you will then be sent home with your companions—'

‘And I for one,' barked Hood, interrupting, ‘will not miss you.'

‘I can assure you, sir,' Pearce replied in a like tone, ‘the feeling is entirely mutual.'

‘Captain Digby's orders will be sent over within the hour, but you are to say nothing that alerts him to the real facts. Now, do we have an agreement?'

Pearce took his time, making it appear as if he was examining possible alternatives; but there were none that he could think of that would solve the very obvious problems already outlined by these two scoundrels. His own resources were limited; they held all the cards, something of which they had been aware before they ever sent for him.

As a last-ditch effort, he said, ‘I am not sure I can trust you.'

If he had expected protestations he was sorely disappointed. Hood actually smiled, showing yellowing teeth. ‘But you have to, do you not?' He then shouted for his senior secretary, who came quickly enough, to take the letter Pearce had been allowed to read.

‘The letter to Admiral Hotham, telling him I have confirmed the court martial sentence on Captain Barclay, can be sent over.'

‘Now, Mr Pearce,' Hood growled, as his secretary departed, ‘let us rehearse what it is you have to say to Queen Caroline.'

The complexities of that message – and they were many – were running though Pearce's head as he was ferried back to his own ship; that, mixed with mental lists of who he could name to bear witness against Barclay. He thought of the man's wife, until he recalled that she was debarred from testifying against her own husband, though that did not completely kill off the notion of asking her, given her reply would be of much interest. There was the aforementioned Midshipman Farmiloe, he had been present at the actual event and the lad seemed honest, so honest that Barclay had made sure he was sent away.

Martin Dent would do anything to help him, he knew, as would
Brilliant
's bosun, Robert Sykes, but what pleasure it would be to get some other people in the dock. Barclay himself, of course, and that little toad Toby Burns, who had apparently fabricated a whole ream of evidence to an impressment at which he had not even been present. There was the bully Devenow, devoted to Ralph Barclay; he needed to learn that blind loyalty to a man like that had a price, and Kemp, the rat-faced creature who had been the most consistent to
the Pelicans in his threats of violence. Finally, there was Cornelius Gherson; put him in the dock, intimate he was in danger, and he would betray Barclay with the same alacrity with which he betrayed everybody. Thinking on him and his character – or lack of it – John Pearce had a sneaking suspicion that he would find a way to come out of any trial unscathed.

What could he say to Digby? That his superior would be curious he did not doubt; elevated people like Hood did not send for the likes of John Pearce without a good reason, and there and then he decided he had to be honest. Never mind what those two buggers had said about discretion; Henry Digby was a man he liked and a man he trusted. Being open on board ship had its risks. It was a damn sight smaller than most but the same level of outright nosiness was present in his vessel as it was in any other. It required Pearce, once he had come back aboard, to sit very close to Digby and speak in a near whisper, and also to hold up his hand every time the other man looked likely to pose a question.

‘I was ordered not to tell you all this, sir, but it is not like our previous encounters in Biscay and Villefranche. I cannot in all conscience see how to do so without myself telling you lies, and that I am not prepared to do.'

‘I thank you for your confidence.'

Wondering at the look on Digby's face, Pearce added, ‘It would probably be best to put out of your mind everything I have said.'

‘Something has become plain to me, Mr Pearce.'

‘And that is, sir?'

‘It is this!' he snapped. ‘That my continued command of this ship is entirely dependent on you.'

‘I think you are here because you deserve it, sir.'

‘No,' Digby insisted. ‘You forget we first met when we were both serving aboard HMS
Brilliant
.'

‘How long ago that now seems.'

Digby gave a rather forced smile. ‘I recall you were disrespectful to me, just as I recall being unsure what to do about it. But do you not see, this is different. I was sent away to the Bay of Biscay for the very same reason as the likes of Farmiloe. As a lieutenant serving under Captain Barclay, I would have been able to testify that what was being said was not true…'

‘Then maybe I will call you as a witness at his trial.'

‘Please don't, Pearce,' said Digby sadly. ‘I fear my association with you will already have done my career serious harm, and this secret mission to Naples will not help. And before you chastise me, which I can see in your expression, please recall that, unlike you, the King's Navy is all I have.'

‘Boat coming alongside, Capt'n,' called a voice. ‘From the flag.'

‘Our orders,' said Pearce, before adding, ‘and if it turns out that what you say is true, then I can only tell you that I am sorry.'

‘I know, Mr Pearce, just as sure as I know you will do that which you have to, without a damn for the consequences to anyone caught in the eddies of your fixation.'

For lovers of coincidence, the sight of Toby Burns sitting in Sir William Hotham's great cabin would have occasioned a remark, doubly so given the conversation revolved around something of the same subject as that taking place on HMS
Victory
. On Hotham's table lay a copy of the same set of papers that had sat on Lord Hood's, and Burns was being gently questioned regarding his testimony. The cabin was not excessively hot, but he felt a bead of sweat trickling down his back, and the knot of anxiety in his gut testified to the fact that he was well aware of his predicament: he knew the extent of his lies, just as knew he was trapped between two forces, neither of which he could withstand.

The looks he had been subjected to in the gunroom on receipt of the summons ranged from anger, through wonder, to envy. For an admiral to notice a mid who was
not a relative was exceptional, to witness one called to attend upon the great man for a personal interview was close to being unheard of. His first day and night in the berth had conformed to every hateful thought Toby Burns had harboured; the most senior fellow, who occupied the top of the table at mealtimes and bullied with impunity, was in his thirties, a crude-mannered, grizzled bugger who knew, by now, he would never make lieutenant, and only stayed aboard ship in a position which was unpaid because he got regular food and purloined his wine from younger midshipmen with private means. And then there was always the prospect of some great fleet action and a sufficiency of prize money, which would allow him to set up ashore.

The rest varied from a brace of meek creatures less of an age than himself to seniors a lot older, through all the grades of society: the sons of dockyard officials keen to see their family advanced by a successful sailor, a trio who confessed to being the offspring of minor clergy, others from farming stock or trading families and one right honourable of remarkable stupidity. All were connected in some way with the service or with a naval officer who had an association with either the flagship's captain, a relatively junior officer, or Sir William Hotham himself, and that was the reason they were serving aboard.

The berth was filthy and stank of excessively bad food and unwashed humanity, none fitting the latter description more than the servant who attended to their
needs, so dirty an individual, in grease-stained ducks and face never troubled by water, that Toby had thought him on first sight to be a blackamoor. He knew, from his bitter experience on first coming aboard his uncle's ship, that his sea chest would be rifled as soon as his back was turned: his good shirts would disappear to be replaced by near rags, not a handkerchief would remain in his possession and he would be lucky to hang on to any stockings or his spare breeches.

Now here he was, sat alongside a man closer to God than humanity, clutching an apple the admiral had given him, but too fearful to take a bite out of it.

‘I am well aware that you owe your uncle a great deal.'

‘I do, sir,' he croaked in reply, this from a mouth and throat devoid of fluid.

Hotham made an impatient gesture, as though he had breeched some deep obligation, and called for his steward to fetch some wine. ‘Forgive me, young fellow, for not anticipating your need for a drink, though I daresay if you were to essay a nibble at the fruit in your hand it would ease matters somewhat.'

Toby raised the apple to his lips and took out a great bite, alarmed at the sound of crunching, so loud in the prevailing hush. Hotham was just looking at him, his pallid face and pale-blue eyes devoid of expression, as though waiting for something to happen. Once Toby had consumed his mouthful, he broke the silence.

‘I had no idea, when I invited Captain Barclay to
transfer you, that you are something of a hero.'

The mention of that did nothing to cheer the boy; Toby had, long ago, come to the conclusion that his supposed exploits on the Brittany shore had ceased to be an unmitigated blessing and were becoming something of a burden. Arriving back in England with a ship recaptured from the French, so soon after the outbreak of hostilities with the old enemy, had seen him treated as a person of special importance. Hotham was not the first admiral with whom he had dealt; he had met a number of these creatures eager to congratulate him – all of whom terrified him – before returning home to a welcome from half the town of Frome. So much was made of his exploit he had found it impossible to deny a return to duty, when what he really wanted was to stay ashore and never see the 'tween decks of a ship of war again.

In his growing dislike of any mention of the subject, of course, there was one thing he had quite forgotten: how he had originally indulged himself in the warm glow of the praise heaped upon him, such adulation being something he had never enjoyed in his young life. The whole affair had, at the time, gone to his head – he had begun to believe the myth – only to come crashing down to earth when the true hero of the occasion, a man he never thought to meet ever in his life again, hove into view.

‘It was much exaggerated, sir.'

‘Come now, lad, no modesty is necessary here. You
behaved in a gallant fashion, especially given your youth. I would be glad, however, to hear the tale from your own lips.'

Terror replaced anxiety; did this man know the truth? Toby could not be sure he had not somehow been told, so to recount the tale as it had been originally reported, with him bravely taking command of the marooned seamen and effecting a daring escape, might dig for him a pit from which there would be no escape.

When Toby failed to respond immediately, Hotham said, ‘I suspect you find it hard to speak in the presence of someone of my rank. Yet you forget I started out as a midshipman, though it is hard to think that it was forty years ago.'

‘Really, sir?' Toby replied, not sure what else to say.

Hotham became more wistful as he continued. ‘At one time I thought I might have a lad of my own come to sea, as you have, but the Good Lord has not blessed me with a wife, and therefore that is a dream unfulfilled.' Quickly the mood altered as he said briskly, ‘So you see, lad, you have no need to be in awe of a fellow who was once just like you.'

‘I hope my career enjoys the same level of success, sir.'

‘Perhaps it will, given you have shown such early promise.'

‘What was your first action, sir?'

If Hotham realised he was being drawn away from any explanation by this young man, it did not register,
for he had a fair measure of vanity, and it rankled that so few – notably Lord Hood – seemed to appreciate the high points of his career. That Hood had achieved more was due to the luck of being in the right place at the right time. It had nothing to do with judgement. Given the same opportunities, he might have surpassed his present superior. Sitting there, looking at the boy, his whole career seemed to flash before him.

‘Alas, Mr Burns, my first action was indecisive. I took on a Frenchman of superior force, but nothing came of it, though I managed a few months later to overhaul and take, by boarding, a privateer of twenty-six guns.'

‘A powerful opponent, sir.'

‘Indeed, and it got me my step to post rank.'

Hotham had replied in an almost distant fashion; he was thinking of how well he had done in the Americas, with a sound action in '57 that had seen him and his consort take as prize an enemy man o' war. But the feeling of a life well lived could never be sustained, for it led to the misfortune he had experienced off the Scilly Isles, escorting a large home-bound convoy. The French squadron who had intercepted them had been too powerful for his few frigates to oppose, so he had been obliged to watch them help themselves to as many prizes as they could overhaul before nightfall, and that was an event which still haunted him.

One of the pair of chronometers on the bulkhead began to chime the hour, the sound of which seemed to affect the admiral and bring him back to the present, for
he sat more upright in his chair and, moving close, fixed Toby Burns with a firmer eye. ‘But I did not invite you here to talk about my career, did I?'

Toby's heart sank once more, the thought that he had avoided telling his own tale evaporating.

‘I must wait to hear about your exploits, Mr Burns, for time presses, so I must return to the main subject, which as we know is of you giving evidence at your uncle's court martial and how it relates to the truth.'

The clenching feeling in the boy's stomach was so acute he feared he might void himself in panic, and the same emotion was obviously apparent in his face, for Hotham laid a hand on his knee and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

‘Do not alarm yourself, lad. I suspect your uncle asked for your help, and you willingly gave it.'

‘I…did…sir,' Toby lied. He had been as afraid of his uncle as he was now. It was that dread which had induced him to agree to tell a pack of lies.

‘But it was not the whole truth, was it?'

None of it was true, not one jot, but he merely shook his head, unwilling to say so out loud.

Hotham took his hand off Toby's knee and sat back, both hands forming an arch below his lips, with the boy noticing, only from the diminution, the heat that physical contact had engendered. Unbidden, his mind was filled with other thoughts, about the choirmaster at his local church who was much given to fondling, and the stories which circulated regarding one of the masters at the
school he had attended. Then there were the sly hints and goosing made by some of the older mids, which he never knew how to take: as ploys to make him worry, or genuine suggestions.

The silence that followed seemed to last for an age, with the older man clearly once more lost in thought. Finally he laid his fingertips on the edge of the table, Toby now taken with the neatness of his fingernails.

‘You have been candid with me, Mr Burns, and I am appreciative of that.'

‘Thank you, sir.'

Hotham nodded. ‘Tell me, how are you finding life in the gunroom?'

Even if the change of subject had not caught him off guard, there was only one answer to such a question. ‘Splendid, sir. You are blessed with a fine set of fellows.'

‘A set of rogues more like.'

‘Sir…I…'

‘There's no need to seek to hide the truth, boy. Did I not say I was a mid once? I know what the life was like and nothing will have changed in the meantime. Now, truthfully, how do you fare there?'

Suddenly Toby Burns's face collapsed, and he was clearly near to tears. No one had ever asked him of this before with the slightest interest in the reality. Not his mother or father, his aunt or his uncle.

‘It is hard, sir.'

Hotham nodded. ‘I too found it so, for I was a sensitive child, yet I survived as you will. But rest
assured, I will make it known that you are under my personal protection, Mr Burns, which I suspect will ease your life considerably.'

The feeling of misery disappeared as quickly as it had formed; that was a message which would see him left in peace, in fact it might be one so powerful as to make him cock of the gunroom walk. No one would dare go near
his
sea chest!

‘Thank you, sir.'

‘You may return to your duties, Mr Burns,' Hotham said, looking at his chronometers again. ‘We will return to this subject when I have more time.'

Toby stood to leave and, unsure what to do, he gave a slight bow before turning away. He was at the door when Hotham spoke again, which forced him to face the admiral once more. There was a firmer look to the man's face now.

‘One thing, Mr Burns, when I ask you to come here again, I would like you to tell me precisely what your uncle induced you to say on his behalf, as well as the facts of the matter. I take it you will be willing to oblige me?'

Toby Burns was not the brightest of boys, never had been, but he was quick enough in regard to his own
well-being
to see the import of those words; the protection recently offered could just as easily be reversed, and if that happened his life would be a damn sight more miserable than it was now.

‘Yes, sir.'

Ralph Barclay was at a loss to know what to do. His wife had gone, and he suspected the only place she could have fled to was Lutyens's hospital, but that knowledge did nothing to solve the problem of how to deal with the matter. Should he take a party of seamen over there and fetch her back by force? Should he go alone and seek a private interview in which to explain and seek forgiveness for his behaviour? Should he indeed even think of apologising for taking what was his by right?

He knew in his heart that the same level of drink, which had made him behave as he had, was the reason he had missed her nocturnal flight. He had slept like a log, which had allowed her to vacate the cabin unnoticed, but she must have been seen leaving the ship, and in doing so at such an hour would have set tongues wagging even more. He had to get her back somehow. There was her clothing, most of which was still in her quarter gallery cabin; she must come back for that and when she did…

As the various solutions flitted through his mind he could settle on nothing, and in the end that was what he decided to do. Emily must be given a chance to see sense; she was alone in a foreign port with no means of support other than him, and she could in no way get passage on a ship returning to England without his help. If these facts were clear to him they must become equally clear to her, and once they did she would see the sense in returning to her proper estate.

‘Enter,' he called, as the soft knock sounded on the door.

Opening it, Lieutenant Glaister raised his hat, which only served to accentuate his skeletal facial features. He was all well-defined bone – cheeks, nose and jaw – with a sizeable thin-lipped mouth and wispy receding fair hair, which gave him a prominent forehead seemingly untroubled by eyebrows. Yet there was curiosity in the startlingly blue eyes, which left Ralph Barclay wondering if such an emotion sprung from the mere calling of this meeting, or had something to do with his marital travails.