When a British man-o’-war was sighted from the twin promontories that lay at the outer edge of the harbour of Brindisi, escorting two heavily laden merchant vessels, that in itself was enough to cause interest, being a rare event. When the locals could see the Union Flag set above the Tricolour, to denote the trading ships were captures, they flocked to the shoreline to catch a glimpse of the men who had effected such a coup, this observed by John Pearce from the crosstrees of HMS Flirt and through a telescope.
They had much time to assemble; with the wind coming off the shore, carrying with it the scent of warm, damp earth, it was necessary to beat up to the outer bay in a time-consuming manner. Added to that, Brindisi was a tricky port to enter, the passage to the inner roads being by a narrow channel into which it was only wise to first slot the two French merchantmen while he took a boat to confer with his superior.
‘Henry, if you could look through a long glass as I have done you would see an amazing sight. The crowds are so dense I would not be surprised to find when we land a band will be assembled to play us ashore.’
The master and commander of HMS Flirt could only manage a wan smile as he tried to raise himself in response, an action checked by a gentle hand from a man who knew that one of the first tasks was to get Henry Digby ashore and into the hands of a proper physician. The man who had been treating him, French and a gentle soul, was competent, but only up to a point.
For all his palpable concern, Pearce was eager to get off the merchantmen and back to the brig. Given the crowds he had espied it would not surprise him to be in receipt of an official reception. He was still in his old working uniform so he would need to spruce up to make the right impression on any local dignitaries.
Brindisi lay within the Kingdom of Naples, allied to Britain in the war against the French Revolution. Being of such a size and importance the governor would be a person of some standing. For the naval and military he had spotted the upper poles of what looked to be a frigate in the inner roads, while the fortress that overlooked the city was formidable enough to warrant a decent-sized garrison under a high-ranking officer.
The salutes began while he was still in the cutter, fired from another fort set on an island in the wide bay, but that was of no concern; the reply from the brass signal gun was seen to by Matthew Dorling, left in charge until Pearce was rowed alongside to be enveloped in a cloud of smoke from the discharge.
There was a moment where he contemplated a quick dip in the sea but there was too little time and if he could see through a telescope what was awaiting them, those ashore and curious would likewise have many a glass trained on the British warship. Thankfully, Michael O’Hagan had drawn off some water from the barrels in the hold and that allowed him to strip off and wash, a hot bowl supplied with which to shave, all carried out to the sound of Lieutenant Edward Grey exercising his marines for whatever ceremony they might be required to perform.
‘I am being hounded, John-boy, for what it is you are planning.’
The Irishman said this in a very soft voice, always careful to never let anyone hear him being overfamiliar with his officer and knowing the ability of his shipmates to hear through six inches of planking. In truth they were intimate enough for O’Hagan to tell Pearce when he thought he was being foolish, a trait all too common in the time since they had become acquainted.
‘There’s no plan, Michael, other than that we will not, if matters pan out right, be taking our captures back to Corsica. Added to that, Mr Digby needs to be ashore to recuperate and to recover his strength and that looks to me as if it will require time. I have suggested to him, and he agrees, that we will seek to sell our Frenchmen to the locals for the best price we can get.’
‘Which even I know is not the right way.’
‘The “right way”, as you call it, would mean a voyage of a week or more and that argues a fair wind. So far our Frenchmen have been placid, but …?’
‘Sure it’s no wonder. It was us that saved them from dancing on the devil’s rope.’
‘Gratitude fades, even for the gift of life. We are not well enough served with hands to provide full prize crews and properly carry our own ship through waters we both know to be dangerous.’
There was no need to elaborate on that point; HMS Flirt would be sailing across a sea that had led to the loss of a previous vessel on which they had sailed; to so deplete the crew in order to secure the captures would leave her too short of hands if it came to another serious contest. Chin smooth, Pearce slipped into a fresh linen shirt, soon to be followed by his white breeches.
‘We have only got this far because our Frenchmen have done the sailing on their own ships and that tempest left them little choice but to do so willingly. What if such a mood fades? I have no mind to try to weather the south of Italy and beat my way back to San Fiorenzo Bay in such circumstances.’
‘You reckon we’d lose them?’
‘I reckon, Michael, that we face two possibilities – neither of them good. We have had trouble enough in the waters around Sicily. North of that and approaching the coast of their homeland there is a chance our Frenchmen will be tempted to take their ships back from us one dark night and make prisoners of our own men. If they split up we can only chase one and if they are lucky we could forfeit both, which will leave us with empty pockets and that I cannot countenance.’
‘Am I at liberty to pass that on?’
‘You may.’ Pearce grinned as, black stock tied on, O’Hagan helped him into his deep-blue broadcloth coat. ‘And you may tell those who have not already heard through eavesdropping that when the vessels are sold there will be an immediate distribution of the prize money.’
‘While you say we could be here a while?’
‘Not you, my friend, and it is for your own good. In funds and with me gone you would only get into trouble.’
O’Hagan pulled a face, but he did not dispute the point; he knew only too well his propensity to get blind drunk and seek to chastise anything warm-blooded and male within the range of his fists. At one time that had included John Pearce and he had connected once, although, apart from being fired up for battle, he was stone-cold sober and had acted to save his friend’s life. It was, however, unknown to Pearce and Michael wanted it kept that way.
‘No, the Pelicans are off to Naples, once the business is concluded, as my escort.’
‘I smell convenience,’ Michael responded, the look as suspicious as the tone of his voice, given Naples was at present home to Emily Barclay, his friend’s paramour.
‘I will not deny that the proposal meets my personal needs as well as those of the ship, though I hope you believe I would not put one in the way of the other. But I am sure we will have time to get there and back before Mr Digby is up and ambulant.’
‘Holy Mary, I hope we get some liberty time there!’
‘That I have to grant you, Michael.’ The grin was accompanied by a pat on one large shoulder. ‘It would be too cruel that I should enjoy the company of a woman while you are denied the chance to do likewise.’
‘I will not be looking for a good woman as you will.’
‘No, I daresay you will not.’
Coming up onto the deck Pearce found the marine lieutenant waiting and looking as spruce as was he. The lobsters Grey led were polished and properly blancoed so that their white belts stood out starkly from their scarlet uniforms and shiny blackened shoes.
The cutter was still in the water but the crew had set a flagstaff in the stern and hung from it a Union Flag, while the oarsmen, under the watchful eye of Tilley, Henry Digby’s coxswain, had spent as much time as anyone prettying themselves. Each wore tarred sennit hats, their best checked shirt, a coloured bandana, while their pigtails had been seen to and decorated with ribbons.
‘Mr Grey, you will of course accompany me?’
‘Sir,’ came the crisp reply as he indicated that four of his men should proceed into the cutter, doing service this day as a captain’s barge. Grey followed and lastly John Pearce went through the gangway, this to the sound of a high-pitched pipe. ‘You have your orders, Mr Dorling?’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
Pearce took up his position at the stern, the oars were dipped as soon as the cutter was clear and, at a steady rhythm designed to produce the minimum spray, Pearce was rowed towards the narrow channel. The huzzahs, or whatever was the Italian equivalent, he could hear from a long way off and they only grew into a crescendo as they traversed its length. Pearce sat still and eyes forward: such cheers were not acknowledged as to do so would be, for a King’s Officer, undignified.
Once through and into the inner roads, Tilley set the cutter’s prow for a set of wide steps in the middle of the main part of the town on which stood a single classical column, one his passenger had seen in a pen and ink drawing. There had originally been two, for these steps were at the very end of the Appian Way that had run from Rome to Brundisium in antiquity and was reputed still to do so.
‘I would not be surprised to see a Roman consul on yonder steps, Mr Grey,’ Pearce said, having explained the significance.
‘Clad in a toga with his fasces and axe?’
‘It would be fitting, yes, when you think of the names that have departed from this very spot. Caesars from Julius to Hadrian and Trajan, even Pompey and quite likely Cleopatra came and went from here.’
What was waiting for them on the steps were not Roman proconsuls or Egyptian queens but their modern equivalents, the dignitaries Pearce had suspected would assemble. All were in somewhat gaudy uniforms, bright-yellow, stark-white and bottle-green combinations, in contrast to the simplicity of Royal Navy blue and Marine scarlet.
The fellow at the centre, his chest festooned with glittering stars, under a cocked hat decorated with ostrich feathers, wore on his shoulders the largest epaulettes Pearce had ever seen. It was an inadvertent but amusing thought that such platforms would be an excellent place to set down a goblet of wine when simultaneously trying to eat.
As he stepped ashore a band did indeed strike up, a rather tinny-sounding affair, but the tune was jolly in a martial sense. Pearce lifted his own naval scraper and introduce himself in French, the language of international diplomacy; it was a relief when the man greeting him, who turned out to be the governor, replied fluently in the same language.
The face fell when he was informed that he was not addressing the actual captain of the British warship, but his second in command, a countenance that went through several states of anxiety as the reasons were explained. The orders he subsequently issued were in Spanish, Naples being a Bourbon-ruled kingdom with an Iberian-born monarch.
The words eluded Pearce but were quickly related to him in French by an aide. The governor’s own barge, wide, stable and comfortable, was given the task of fetching Henry Digby ashore, where the finest physicians would treat him at the expense of the kingdom.
‘And now,’ the aide added, ‘His Excellency wishes to show the conquering hero to the multitude.’
And bask in the reflected glory, Pearce surmised, an aside whispered to Edward Grey who would accompany him, his marines left to guard the cutter and the crew. There was also the task of making sure the latter stayed with the boat, given the propensity of the British tar to wander off in a foreign port in search of pleasure.
What followed was a parade through crowded narrow streets to the gubernatorial palace where a banquet awaited, which impressed the guests, given there had been little time to prepare, and naturally Pearce was required to explain how the captures had come about.
When he mentioned Mehmet Pasha, the man with whom the crew of HMS Flirt had so recently done battle, the air turned blue with what he was sure were filthy Spanish epithets. Obviously the man who ruled for the Ottoman Empire on the Dalmatian coast was no stranger to those who lived on the shoreline of Apulia.
Details of the actual fight were demanded, to be greeted with equivalent bravoes, as was the sheer brio of the action itself. Drink flowed, strong local Salento wines, followed by a seemingly innocuous lemon liqueur that packed a hidden punch. Toasts were raised to both Kings Ferdinand and George, while the beasts of Paris and the French Revolution were reviled.
Grey had to be helped back to the cutter and it was an unsteady John Pearce who finally got away to visit Henry Digby, now in a comfortable chamber overlooking the harbour, with windows that admitted a cooling night-time breeze. Doctors had tended to his wound and he was now swathed in clean, well-bound bandages.
‘I will seek out some people to trade with on the morrow and then I can report progress to you.’
‘Not too early, John. By the way your words are coming out I reckon you need a couple of watches before you will be decent company.’
‘Nonsense,’ was the reply, the common one of someone drunk and unwilling to acknowledge he was slurring his speech. ‘Decent night’s sleep will set me up properly.’
The hangover with which John Pearce awoke gave a lie to that and not even a long dip in the sea, taken outside the harbour to avoid the effluent of the town, which seriously discoloured the water, was sufficient to alleviate his suffering.
‘And here’s you chastising me for my drinking,’ was the caustic response from Michael O’Hagan when he came back on board to be towelled and groan. ‘Best I fetch you some more coffee.’
The discussion regarding what to do with the merchant crews he had already held with Digby. Aboard the captured vessels the crews had been confined, but without any ferocity. While at anchor Flirt could spare as many men as were needed to ensure they did not try to get ashore prematurely. Once any trade had been completed they were to be given a choice: to offer their services to King George or to be put ashore with the aim of making their way by their own efforts back to France.
Neither John Pearce nor Henry Digby relished the thought of taking them back to the main fleet as prisoners, even if in letting them go they were forfeiting the head money that would be paid out for their capture. Flirt was already a crowded vessel and the means of confinement that would not cause resentment simply did not exist. Added to that, such prisoners would be taken back to England and held in conditions in which not all would survive.
Brindisi being, outside Venice, the major trading port of the Adriatic, it enjoyed one major advantage for an officer of the King’s Navy seeking to sell his captures. Such a busy entrepôt traded extensively with the Levant, so it had a small contingent of British traders permanently based in the town. These men were eager to offer their good offices, which would make the task of dealing with the locals that much easier.
What did not serve was the determination of these worthies to treat this officer to the very depth of their hospitality, which had him repeating the tale of the captures, while once more engaging in endless toasts in both port, wine and brandy. It was thus a staggering and silly-grinning officer who was rowed out to the sloop, needing to be aided to get back on board for a second night in succession.
‘I swear I need to be away from here, Henry. My constitution can scarce bear it.’
‘Are you saying I have an advantage for being laid up?’
There was jocularity in the enquiry and that, despite a thumping headache, cheered Pearce, given it hinted at a recovery of spirit from a man not much given to smiling. Not himself dedicated to a naval career that had come about by misfortune, just as rank had been gifted to him by luck, he understood that for Henry Digby it was his life. It was that being put in jeopardy that had encouraged him to act in a reckless fashion and to seek a hero’s death.
From a middling background he was typical of the men who made up the service: loyal to their king, country and the thirty-nine articles of their Protestant faith. Men like Digby had entered their profession as boys with hopes of one day rising to both high rank and wealth; in short, there was not a midshipman born who did not dream of an admiral’s flag and the prosperity that went with it, and such longings would not be abated by several years of service.
To prosper in the King’s Navy required a degree of interest, the support of powerful patrons, as well as being seen as a client officer by a serving admiral. Even with that they were required to avoid multiple hazards along the way, those being human as well as practical. The latter was merely the dangers of an unpredictable element, the sea. Then there was sickness, which removed many more men than had ever been lost to the navy in battle.
Finally, there was that peril itself and the search for glory within its remit. The deck of a warship in a fight was as lethal a place as even Lucifer could dream of, with barely aimed round shot blasting around you which, if it did not cut a man in half, could smash through several feet of timber to send deadly splinters flying. These competed with musket fire from the enemy tops or slashing and crushing weapons from an adversary determined to board.
It had to be accepted, too, that a simple error of judgement or a misreading of an enemy’s intentions could destroy the most illustrious career. Decisions had to be made well away from those who would approve or disapprove of the choice taken. Then there was politics, which could act to snuff out a promising career while the man suffering would be left with no idea why.
Pearce had to force himself to put such forbidding thoughts aside and return to the main business. ‘Our fellow countrymen, traders all, have undertaken to see to the sale of our captures, but no agreement will be concluded of which you do not approve.’
‘I would not wish it to be my sole decision, John.’
‘Which will not, I am told, be immediate in any case. The doctors reckon you need several weeks to fully recover, perhaps a month, so I request your permission to absent myself. Mr Grey and Dorling are well able to care for matters without my needing to be present.’
‘I have no need to ask where it is you intend to go.’
‘I am hardly unaware that you disapprove, Henry.’
‘Just as I am aware that if I sought to forbid it you would defy me.’
‘It would pain me to do so.’
Digby closed his eyes, Pearce hoped to mask his desire to issue such an order. That John Pearce should be in a relationship with the wife of another man was bad enough to his pious mind. But in addition to that she was the wife of Ralph Barclay, a naval officer and a full post-captain and such a fact made matters ten times worse, given there could be consequences by mere association. Pearce had defied him before and his comment that he would do so again hinted that a relationship once fraught but then repaired might revert to tension once more.
‘I think,’ Digby finally said, his voice a near whisper, ‘that I must let our Maker care for your soul, John, since you would not accept any such aid from me.’
‘Then since I have bespoken a coach for the journey, I will depart on the morrow.’
‘Money?’
‘Our good friends here have advanced me a sum against the sale of our captures.’
That caused Digby to purse his lips; if his feelings were unspoken they were nevertheless far from a secret. It was as if he was wondering why John Pearce had bothered to ask his permission, since he plainly cared naught for the answer.