The Admirals' Game (18 page)

The order for Digby to proceed to
Alcide
was hardly necessary given his mission, and the boat was in the water before his ship had completely lost way, Pearce being left to see to her being anchored. That completed, the premier undertook the next task, which was to keep an eye on the numerous boats which had come alongside. The whole ship's crew were occupied, as far away from him as possible, buying everything, while calling to alluring female creatures seeking to tempt them into transgression.

Digby had been quite strict on that score; while some captains turned a blind eye to the smuggling on board of local whores – something inclined to turn the lower deck into a place of riot – he would not stand for it, and any man found to have disobeyed, he had already warned, would be flogged. Pearce, having a jaundiced view of his fellow humans, and in particular of sailors, knew that sanction would not prevent them trying, half suspecting
that bearding the captain in that game, getting one over on him, was as important to some of the crew as getting their leg over a female.

‘Mr Harbin,' he called, seeing the crowd at the bows. ‘Please make sure that no women or drink come aboard from those boats.'

‘Will there be drink, sir, them hereabouts being Mussulmen?'

‘I think you will find, Mr Harbin, that where there is money to be made, religious scruples are soon discarded. Try to confine the men to food and trinkets.'

After a decent interval he ordered the boats to stand off and instituted a search of the ship, which had nothing to do with his own morality and everything to do with his duty to his captain. Even in such a small vessel he knew that tars were capable of hiding things that to a normal mind bordered on the impossible, and care had to be employed on his exploration to avoid noticing other articles forbidden; one man's grog saved up for a week in order to get drunk, sets of dice or cards, and personal possessions that smacked of past larceny.

Again this had nothing to do with his own set of standards; he knew, as did every naval officer, that sailors, when it came to the Articles of War and statutes by which they were ruled, were experts in the article of contravention, just as he knew that to seek to punish every one of those misdeeds was impossible. Certainly the men must be governed, for if they were not mayhem would ensue, and John Pearce was willing to apply
sanctions if they were warranted, never mind that it went against his own inclinations.

The men expected it and he had soon realised they would have no respect for a blue coat that did not apply it: a ship of war was too dangerous a place for laxity. Yet it had to be balanced with good sense: too harsh a discipline would be repaid by sullen observance of orders, too nosy an officer might struggle, in a tight situation, to be supported. Perhaps on larger vessels, with crews in the six to nine hundreds, the Articles of War could be applied in full. To his mind it would be fatal on something the size of HMS
Faron
, at present carrying a complement of no more than a hundred. A contented crew meant a compact ship that sailed and fought well, thus that very necessary object, the blind eye, was well employed.

It was therefore unfortunate that the person he found, his back to him, holding up a goatskin of wine, a stream of which must be entering his wide-open mouth, was Michael O'Hagan and, beyond him, the dim outline of a recumbent woman. Crouched below the deck beams of the forepeak, almost doubled over, Pearce watched him for several seconds, hating what he saw and also wondering why Michael had not been warned. There had been enough scuffling and movement ahead of him so far to let him know that men were being alerted to his progress, and either hiding things or getting away from his likely route. Yet his best friend aboard had been left exposed.

Had Michael been set up to be discovered, set up to find out what he would do? Their close association was no secret and somehow men had made sure that the people who would certainly have given out a warning were not there to do so. For the first time, it seemed to Pearce, there might be some resentment on the ship. He had never used his position to favour his Pelicans, but the appreciation of that lay very much in the eye of the beholder, so it was quite possible envy was present where there was no real cause.

These thoughts induced in him a sense of gloom; he was well aware that an absolute knowledge of how he stood with the crew was not possible, but he had reckoned himself, if not popular, at least tolerated. What he was seeing now, in the couple of seconds before he spoke, was the truth. To many men he was still an unknown, and perhaps, given the way he had come by his rank, seen as something of an impostor: in short, there were those on the lower deck of this ship who thought of him in the same way as half the officers in Hood's fleet.

‘Belay that, Michael,' he said softly.

The big Irishman spun round, his square face registering the shock of being caught in the act, but Pearce noticed the look that tried to see beyond him and the confusion that engendered. O'Hagan had expected to be told if he was at risk, expected to have plenty of time to hide both his illicit drink and his whore.

Pearce held out his hand, and took the goatskin off Michael, watching as his face registered a hint of refusal,
a moment of bewilderment, and finally an expression of sadness.

‘Michael, I need to see this creature off the ship.'

‘Sure, I have dropped us in the steep tub, John-boy, have I not?'

‘Me more than you, I think.'

O'Hagan nodded slowly, as what had happened became clear. Michael was not educated, but he was no fool; he knew he had been set up to fall and he knew why.

‘Mr Harbin,' Pearce called loudly, while making a gesture to the woman to get ready to depart. The time which it took for the mid to appear and the woman to be escorted away had clearly given Michael time to think, and he looked at a man he thought of as a friend with eyes full of sadness.

‘Well, John-boy, it seems as if matters will just have to go their own road. I have done wrong by the ways of this damned Navy, and no amount of saints will see me off the due reward.'

‘I cannot ignore it, Michael.'

‘The good of the ship?'

‘Who…?'

‘Let you find me? That, John-boy, is for me to know, not you.'

‘I just hope…' Pearce could not say the word, could not mention Charlie Taverner. They, as a pair, went back to a time when Pearce did not know them and had a rivalry over that serving wench in the Pelican Tavern.
For all he knew they might have clashed since, given they were far from being two peas in a pod. They were different, very much so, as was immature Rufus, but would that extend to such as this?

‘It weren't anyone you or I'd call a friend, never fear.'

‘There's a price to pay, Michael.'

O'Hagan nodded. ‘And it must be borne.'

Pearce fingered his blue officer's coat. ‘I could give this up.'

‘Mother of God, don't even think on it. It's the only hope we have of salvation.'

Pearce held out his hand and took the goatskin, feeling it and taking note it was half empty. The wine had probably yet to fully affect Michael, but it surely would and Pearce knew him to be a dangerous drunk, a man who, inebriated, thought of nothing except loud boasting and fisticuffs. It was in that condition he had first met him and had he not ducked his head it would have been knocked off. If the drink did affect him, he would be a dangerous man in the next couple of hours, quite capable, in his anger, of being left exposed to massively compound what was a relatively minor offence.

‘Michael, I am going to get Mr Harbin to lock you in the cable tier.'

‘Jesus, John-boy, that is harsh.'

Pearce held up the goatskin. ‘Believe me, friend, I am doing it for your own good. You have had a fair measure of this, and once it takes you over, I fear you might kill
someone. And know this, Michael, when the captain returns I cannot plead for you.'

‘Jesus, John-boy, if you had as much trouble in your life as I have, you would not let that get you down.'

If Henry Digby was aware of Pearce's discomfort in the article of punishing Michael O'Hagan, it was well hidden, he being more taken with the results of his interview with the commodore.

‘Matters are at a stand, Mr Pearce, and I do not think the man in charge of negotiations knows what to do. He has seen the Bey twice without any progress.'

‘You've yet to tell me what he is trying to achieve, sir.'

‘Is it not obvious? Linzee is seeking to close the North African ports to the French, thus denying them both stores and an anchorage for their warships, as well as convoys such as that currently tied up in the bay.' Digby's eyes lit up then, with undisguised greed. ‘From Smyrna, by all accounts, and worth a fortune. Would it not be just the finest thing if we were here when it was seized?' 

‘Is it about to be?'

‘In the balance, as I fear Commodore Linzee lacks the passion for a bold stroke, not that the orders I have delivered, from what I can gather, allow him much latitude. He wants the Bey to make the decision, so he seeks to persuade him it is in his interest to side with England. Naturally, the French press him with the opposite view. Anyway, we are to dine with him today, preparatory to another visit to the old fellow on the morrow.'

‘I must take a boat over to
Agamemnon
, sir, I have letters for Captain Nelson from Sir William and Lady Hamilton.'

‘Have you, indeed?' Digby replied, in a manner that suggested Pearce had just admitted to being the bearer of the plague. ‘I shouldn't bother, you will be at table with him at three of the clock.'

‘And O'Hagan?'

‘Can wait till the morrow. I take it the bosun has been told to ready a cat?'

‘No, sir,' Pearce replied, aware that he had forgotten that particular naval custom: each flogging had made for the occasion its own special instrument of punishment.

‘I should see to that, Mr Pearce, then it is best bib and tucker for dinner with Linzee. He's Lord Hood's
brother-in-law
, don't you know.'

‘I confess,' Pearce replied gloomily, ‘that I was unaware of the connection.'

Digby dropped his voice, not quite to a whisper, but close. ‘Explains why he's so favoured, Pearce. Not for
the wife's brother to be at anchor off Toulon or manning a battery in some dusty redoubt. No, he gets all the plums.'

‘Is this a plum, sir?'

‘Not the way he described it to me.' Digby then let out a guffaw, and added, ‘More akin to a plum stone. Do you smoke it, Pearce, plum stone?'

‘Droll, sir, very droll,' Pearce replied, as Digby's shoulders shook at the acuity of his own wit.

‘You can't say owt, Charlie,' Latimer insisted, his aged, leathery face intense. ‘Capt'n laid down the rule and Michael broke it.'

Charlie spoke quietly, sitting in the very same forepeak in which the Irishman had been found, for there were ears nearby he did not want twitching. ‘He could have been forewarned. There were shipmates around to sound off for him.'

Blubber Booth put a hand on the complainant's shoulder as Latimer nodded the truth of that point. ‘Michael scares a few folk, Charlie, him being as big as he is. It don't always serve to make you loved.'

‘Christ,' Rufus protested, ‘he's as gentle as a lamb.'

That got the youngster a hard look from Charlie Taverner, who was wondering why Rufus could not recall the Michael O'Hagan who had got drunk nearly every night in the Pelican, and was wont to threaten all and sundry with his ham-like fists for any real or imagined slight.

‘A lamb he ain't, Rufus, if you recall.'

‘Has he raised a fist to anybody aboard this ship?' the youngest Pelican demanded.

‘He don't have to, Rufus,' Blubber insisted. ‘Certain he is a fountain of good humour, and he's good mates to us here, but there are those aboard this barky who are a'feart of Michael, even if he has never given them just cause.'

‘In the name of the Lord, why?'

‘You're not much more'n a nipper, Rufus,' Latimer said, but in a kindly way, which deflected the young man's natural resentment. ‘You sees matters from the age you are, but me and Blubber here has been at sea for a year or two more'n thee, and we has seen enough to be a bit on the up when it comes to seein' things straight. Fear is a funny thing, mates, and it is made real bad by being right in your face. You two would say that there is not man jack aboard has owt to fear from Michael, but he is a big man with big hands and all aboard have heard what he is like as a bare knuckler. You recall his bouts on
Leander
and how he won 'em.'

‘He did get a feller on
Brilliant
an' all,' said Charlie, ‘as we told you, a right bully boy called Devenow who got his comeuppance an' no error.'

‘Word has got round. Michael O'Hagan, for all his good humour, is not a man to cross if you want to stay whole. So there will be men on this barky who laugh at his jokes, funny or no, who get out of his way as he walks to his duty, and for all his cheer, they will not be
happy in themselves for their caution. Did he not clip that bugger who says he saw his dead mother? An' that takes no account of the way we talk to John Pearce, who has never favoured any man that I can see, but that too can be taken amiss. Fear and bein' jealous of a supposed advantage is a powerful blend.'

‘How many?' asked Rufus

‘It only takes a few,' Blubber Booth replied. ‘The problem is, Michael might know well who they are, and suspect they had a hand in him bein' had up, so the likes of us have to stay his fists if he wants to get his vengeance.'

‘Why?' demanded a clearly angry Charlie Taverner, who would not admit to having been in fear of Michael himself, and in the way just described. ‘They deserve what's comin' to them.'

‘They might, but that's not the point.' Latimer made to move, coming up from his haunches with his face showing the strain it was having on his old knees. ‘If'n we don't, our Irish friend will spend every day for a week at the grating, an' I can tell you the result of that will be an end to any good humour Michael might have natural. I has seen it all afore, a good man turned bad by too much of the lash.'

John Pearce was, as Digby had described, in his best bib and tucker which, having been so expertly cleaned in the Palazzo Sessa, tended to make his captain's outfit, being still in much the same state in which it had returned
from Villefranche, look a trifle drab. That Digby had noticed he did not doubt, but he said nothing, seemingly in too good cheer from going aboard a flag vessel in the office of a master and commander.

‘You have your letters?' he asked.

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Good, good,' Digby responded, heading for the gangway. ‘Mr Harbin, you have the deck.'

The two officers clambered down into a cutter in which the boat crew had been dandified, told to put on fresh checked shirts that they would have normally kept for a run ashore, all with the same red neckerchiefs and clean ducks.

‘Now row steady, lads,' Digby called. ‘Ply even, the good name of the ship rests on a smooth crossing.'

Looking at Digby, John Pearce felt he was gifted with a peek at the future man; full of pomp and pride, though not so much as to be a booby, happy in his rank and delighted at the invite. Digby's face flushed with pleasure as, approaching the side of the third rate, the coxswain called out ‘
Faron
' in a loud bellow and he looked at Pearce with a piercing glare, as if to say, ‘Damn your Hamiltons, this is true honour'. That colour deepened as he was piped aboard with all the ceremony due a ship's captain, where there was a line of marines to elevate Digby's mood further, though the job of actually receiving him had been allotted to the premier.

‘Captain Hallowell asks that you join him in his cabin for an early refreshment.'

‘Delighted,' Digby cried, and he and Pearce followed the fellow along the maindeck and up the companionway, his shoulders square and his head held high. Salutes from the marine sentry Digby greeted with a jaunty hand near his hat, then there was a servant waiting to take that from both officers, until finally they were shown in to the sanctum of the main cabin.

‘Gentleman,' the captain cried upon them entering, and once Digby had done the honours, John Pearce found himself shaking the hand of an officer nearly as tall as Michael O'Hagan, one who could not give of his full height for the overhead deck beams. He also had a voice to match his stature. ‘Ben Hallowell, at your service.'

Colonial, thought Pearce, hearing the twang of the Americas in the voice.

‘Steward, a drink for our guests,' Hallowell cried again, his voice booming in a face that was a picture of rubicund good cheer. ‘You need a few drams, sir, to face a dinner with a commodore.'

In the background they could hear the whistles and stamping of another arrival, and Hallowell cried with mock alarm, ‘Damn me, I have missed Nelson coming on board. Still,' he added with another beaming smile, ‘there was never a fellow less likely to take offence.'

Within half a minute Nelson was in the cabin, his small hand and frame dwarfed by that of Hallowell. He took the thump on the back well, for it was delivered with force, his smile alone fading slightly to register the effect.

‘For all love, Ben, belay that,' he moaned, with a somewhat nasal tone in his voice, muffled even more by the appearance and employment of a large handkerchief. ‘I have only one small skeleton to be going on with, and enough diseases contained in it to fill yours.'

‘Captain Digby, allow me to present to you Captain Horatio Nelson, who thinks himself prey to every malaise of mankind. He is, of course, in rude good health.'

‘If only it were so, Ben,' Nelson responded, with a snuffle and a rub, before acknowledging Digby. In being introduced to John Pearce the little captain peered hard at him. ‘I have seen you before, Lieutenant, I am sure.'

‘I think not, sir,' Pearce replied.

He was unwilling to admit that the man was right; Pearce had met Nelson briefly in the English Channel when the captain came aboard the merchantman on which he and his companions were going north, to what they thought was freedom instead of a second impressement. Nelson was on his way south to the join the fleet at Lisbon.

‘No, I never forget a face, it will come to me.'

‘You may have heard of Lieutenant Pearce, sir,' said Digby, ‘rather than met him. He was the fellow elevated by His Majesty for the action with
Centurion
.'

‘Are you, by God? Then I want you next to me at dinner, sir, so you can tell me all about it.'

Digby was so busy being pleased with that response, he failed to see the glare he got from his premier.

Much as he felt he had been grilled like some morsel of food on a hot plate, Pearce could not find it in him to take offence at Nelson. There was an almost childlike innocence to his enthusiasm, and it was telling that all the while Pearce was relating, with the necessary degree of modesty, how he and the crew of HMS
Griffin
had helped a 50-gun man-o'-war to best a French 74, the handkerchief which he was wont to employ had stayed in his pocket and no hint was forthcoming of any malaise.

Of course, the whole table had listened to his tale, which had Digby, drinking with a little more gusto than the rest, thumping the board and crying, ‘Hear him, hear him!'

When Pearce finished, his superior addressed his neighbour. ‘My compliments to you, Captain Nelson, you have a rare gift for getting disclosure. I have sailed with Mr Pearce for more'n two months, and that is the first time he has told the tale whole.'

Linzee, by far the least garrulous soul at the table, gave Pearce a quizzical look, so direct it demanded a response.

‘As I have already said, gentlemen, we had the good fortune to be in the right place at the right time, and that must be laid at the door of the man who commanded the vessel. As well as that, I have already said how the senior members of the crew aided me in making the necessary decisions. If honour is due, then it is theirs by right.'

Pearce was tempted to mention Latimer by name, who had been the most forthcoming in that role, but he feared
to do so unless it led him into an assertion that he held dear: the notion that the Navy was often officered by fools and served by men of the lower deck who were frequently wiser by far.

‘I, for one, am not surprised, Mr Pearce. To my mind there is no nobler creature than those tars who serve on His Majesty's ships and vessels.'

Of all Linzee's guests, Nelson seemed most affected by the wine he was drinking, and that level of hyperbole only served to underline it; Pearce reckoned him as a man with a light head, which generally led to strong sentiments, if not accurate expression.

‘I cannot give you nobility, Horry,' boomed Hallowell, voicing the very thought Pearce was harbouring. ‘I will give you application and courage, but to assert that the men who serve in our vessels are noble is pure rot.'

Nelson beamed, and so eager was he to get in his sally that he spoke quickly enough to slur slightly. ‘I bow to you in that, Ben, and say, without peradventure, you are a living example of the proposition.'

‘Which I am bound to second,' said Linzee, with a wan smile, ‘just as I add my compliments to you, Mr Pearce, on your success.'

That was a rare statement from someone so elevated, indeed from any naval officer. Most, he felt, when free from the prejudice of actual dislike, tended to condescend to him for merely being lucky, men who struggled to conceal their jealousy, and to that was added the sheer bitterness of anyone of high rank that their king had
overturned the custom and practice of the service. Linzee's brother-in-law certainly did not share the sentiment, but it would not be wise to say so.

The commodore seemed a man of serious mien – with a slightly doleful countenance, which suggested he felt the weight of his responsibilities. While enjoying the banter between his two post captains, he had been restrained in his response, and was, as Pearce saw and Digby did not, somewhat pained by the outré outbursts of the latter. If Digby was trying to impress him, he was going the wrong way about it.