The time was marked without bells, each turn of the half-hour sandglass merely scored on the slate. But Barclay had left his orders, and he was on deck well before the first hint of light, whispering admonishment to the men proceeding to their battle stations to be quiet. He even went down to the maindeck to talk to the bow chaser gunners, aware as he passed each loaded cannon that not every one was manned, for he needed his topmen aloft to take in sail damned quick. With so much set he risked a great deal if anything important was shot away by his quarry’s stern chasers.
The first hint of grey produced no silhouette. That was not a worry, both ships would have made subtle alterations to their course throughout the night, and indeed Brilliant might have head-reached the chase and been forced to come about to engage. The slow March dawn was agonising, taking as it did almost an hour from the first tinge on the horizon until there was enough daylight to see a patch of seawater. As the light increased it revealed an ocean bereft of ships. Ralph Barclay waited until he could see the proverbial grey goose at a quarter of a mile, till he knew that he was alone on the water, before issuing any orders.
‘Stand the men down, Mr Roscoe, and resume normal duties once the ship has been put back to rights. Mr Collins, we need to come about and make a rendezvous with the convoy. Pray be so good as to shape us a course.’
Everything that had been struck below was brought up again and put back in place. The guns were housed, cartridges returned to the gunners, rammers, swabs and crowbars stowed over the replaced mess tables and the makeshift benches. The only thing that was not the same as before was the mood of the ship, which ranged from quiet disappointment to spoken disenchantment.
Ever since waking, and thinking about what had occurred the previous night, Pearce had felt a nagging doubt. Contemplating murder was a somewhat extreme way to cover up an activity such as gambling. At his station beside the quarterdeck cannon he had tried to examine Gherson’s face for some clue to another reason – without enlightenment, for the subject of his scrutiny would not look any of his messmates in the eye, and especially not John Pearce, confining any communication to an occasional grunt, one of which was a less than fulsome thanks. The near-silence lasted through the morning rituals of cleaning and eating breakfast, and it was not until they began to carry out deck work, greasing blocks and pulleys, that Pearce could get Gherson far enough away from the others to pose some questions.
‘I was not snooping,’ Gherson insisted, his face taking on the habitual look of a thwarted child.
‘It’s natural to be curious,’ Pearce replied, soothingly, ‘and I myself wondered what some of the crew were up to creeping about, and I daresay the others have too.’
‘Who? Idiots like Taverner or Dommet. That I doubt.’
Pearce was about to say that it was unwise to underestimate Charlie, but thought better of it. ‘It was Rufus who told us you were in danger. Odd that you have not asked how we came to your rescue?’
‘I am grateful. I have already said that.’
Pearce thought if he was he did not look it. ‘What was it those fellows were up to?’
‘Gambling, of course.’
‘What else?’
Gherson’s reply was, to Pearce’s ears, too emphatic. ‘There was nothing else.’
‘So why were you there?’
‘I admit to a weakness for dicing. I was looking for a way of making that known, when I was set upon and dragged under the canvas.’
‘Silently?’ Pearce asked. ‘You made no noise.’
‘I had no chance to,’ Gherson replied with a direct stare that challenged Pearce to disagree. That was followed by a look over his shoulder and the warning word, ‘Kemp!’ Pearce was left none the wiser. But he was still curious, and listened with care as the others asked very similar questions to his own, and ribbed Gherson for his less than convincing replies.
The sight of a pair of fishing boats, inshore of the frigate, caused Ralph Barclay to change course and close with them, ostensibly to buy fish but in reality to ask if they had seen his quarry. Pearce and his mates were on the foredeck, with Dysart, picking shakings out of old ropes that they had been told were too far gone for use, so when HMS Brilliant came alongside they could hear the exchange of words, though only Pearce could comprehend them. Young Farmiloe was fetched forward by the captain to interpret, and made a good fist of his task, his questions about the privateer subtly interspersed with haggling over the price of the fish, which was eventually brought aboard in a basket.
‘You know what they are about, don’t you?’ asked Michael. ‘As you would, having lived among them.’
Pearce had been listening with obvious intent, ears cocked, wondering if he could drop overboard unseen and stay out of sight until the Frenchmen could pick him up. He might manage the former, but the latter was too risky – unable to shout because that would alert the frigate, he might find himself left to drown.
‘I know that if those fishermen have any information about that ship we were chasing they are not saying.’
‘What are they saying?’
Pearce smiled. ‘They’re damning the Revolution, Michael, for it has made it harder for them to get a decent price for their fish, let’s say making music for an Englishman’s ears.’
‘Is that right?’ asked Dysart. Neither Pearce nor Michael had seen the Scotsman move closer to them. In answer to their look of alarm, he winked. ‘Dina worry yersel. Ah’ll no tell onyone ye speak their heathen tongue.’
Pearce and the Scotsman exchanged a look, a half smile met by a nod from the sailor, then noticing that Dysart no longer wore his bandage he asked, ‘How’s the head?’
‘Dinna go pretending yer concerned, laddie,’ Dysart replied, but without rancour, lifting his hat to reveal a patch of shaved head and an ugly red scar. ‘Dae ye want tae see yer handiwork, and that right though ma bluddy hat?’
‘The surgeon’s done a good job.’
‘Like hell! I’d have been better off goin’ tae the gunner’s wife, cack-handed bugger that she is. At least she can use a bluddy needle, for as sure as God made little apples he ca’nae.’
Pearce, smilingly, could only agree. Dysart would bear that scar for life, even if it was hidden by his re-grown hair. ‘I promise not to do it again.’
Pearce got a gentle elbow in the gut. ‘You’ll no get the chance, laddie. I’ll shoot you first.’
Behind them the transaction was completed – Barclay and the wardroom had their dinner, freshly caught fish, some still writhing in the basket, and HMS Brilliant parted company, resuming its previous course.
In the last hour of their watch Pearce and his mates were ordered aloft. First they were required to climb and re-climb the shrouds, then when HMS Brilliant was on the starboard tack, the yards braced round so that they ran their whole length above the planking of the deck, they were being instructed on how to make their way on to the maincourse yard. They had come, if not to like, at least to accept climbing the main shrouds to the point where they joined with what was called the futtock shrouds, with the wind on their backs. Pearce felt reasonably secure clapped on to those ropes, even if the ship did sometimes heave over so that he was leaning backwards. Now he was required to move out into what seemed like thin air, with only a rope under bare feet to rest on, and that bordered on the suicidal. He looked at the looped lines that hung from the yard to hold that footrope, heard them called stirrups, and reckoned the whole assembly too flimsy for security.
‘Look at that, lily-livers,’ said Costello, as Michael O’Hagan, without a blink or a backward glance, put his foot on the rope and, arms and half his upper body over the yard, eased himself out. The ropes bent alarmingly, but they did support him. ‘Now if a heifer like Paddy can trust his weight to the footropes, so can any other man here.’
His words earned him a glare from Michael, who was confident enough to free one hand to point a finger. ‘Don’t call me Paddy, and if I am a heifer beware of my hoof.’
Costello responded with his habitual grin, white teeth flashing, and ignored him, instead addressing Pearce, the next candidate. ‘Well, Pearce, are you going to let this bog-trotter shame an Englishman, or is it only swimming you can manage?’
Pearce declined to challenge the nationality, and had no desire to acknowledge the other. He took a deep breath, and put out one foot.
‘Call “Step on,”’ said Costello, ‘let the man already on the rope know you are coming, so that he will be aware of his own footing on the ropes, which will sag with your weight. If he is not properly set he will take a tumble.’
Pearce obliged, and that was followed by a command to, ‘Clap on to that preventer stay,’ Costello adding, in response to a look of utter incomprehension, ‘that bloody great up and down rope right in front of you. Haul yourself on, then do what our Irish friend did and hang your body over the yard. Right, now move on out so that the rest can follow.’
Pearce, breathing deeply, hung as he was told without any feeling of security, the rope biting into the still-soft soles of his feet. That was when he heard the first faint sound of gunfire, a dull boom that reverberated across the water and was more obvious to those aloft than on deck.
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Costello, looking forward.
‘What can I do for you?’ asked Michael, with a mischievous look.
‘Get down now,’ the bosun’s mate yelled, ‘and stuff your jokes.’
Another dull boom came floating through the grey morning air as Ralph Barclay, hatless and coatless, came on deck, his eyes straining forward. ‘Masthead, what do you see?’
‘Nothing, your honour.’
‘God damn the eyes of those fishermen! Mr Roscoe, all hands, get the best lookouts on the ship aloft and for God’s sake someone get me more sail.’
What followed was a repeat of the previous day, for although the wind had shifted slightly to the north it was still not a breeze to favour the course they were steering. Brilliant was labouring into both a wind and an incoming Atlantic swell. And all the time the dull booming sound of the guns grew louder until finally what Ralph Barclay feared most was confirmed. The ship he had been chasing all night was attacking what looked like the East Indiaman that had become detached from the convoy.
Crowding on sail took no account of potential damage to the top hamper. Twice topsails blew out of their deadeyes and had to be reset. Ralph Barclay became frantic when the firing stopped, incandescent and railing at the course the Indiaman must have been sailing, which was nothing like that of the convoy. He was angry – even more so and unfairly – when he was told that Firefly was nowhere to be seen. He fell silent when informed that the Mercedes was hoisting sail, and that a French ensign flew over the East India Company pennant, declaring that she had just captured the valuable prize.
But despite that, he knew, as he cleared for action, he had a chance to redeem matters. He was between his quarry and St Malo. If the Frenchman headed for his home port he would have to get both barque and prize past the frigate; at the very least he would have to abandon the East Indiaman. At best Brilliant would take her back and board and take her captor as well.
‘He is setting his course south, your honour,’ called the lookout.
‘Damn the man,’ Barclay cried, almost wailing in frustration, casting his eyes towards the rugged North Brittany shore, just a faint grey line on the southern horizon.
‘Mr Collins, look to your charts and any profiles you have of the shoreline. Tell me where he might be headed.’
Within seconds he was pacing up and down the deck, more concerned with the consequences of failure than the prospect of success, for he would find it hard to justify searching for a vessel that not only had he failed to find, but that he had allowed to be captured. Suddenly Ralph Barclay was aware of the impression he was creating, improperly dressed and very obviously agitated. He shot into his cabin, to come face to face with his wife.
‘There is something amiss, Captain Barclay?’ she said.
Given his mood, the reply was sharper than necessary. ‘It is nothing with which you should concern yourself. My coat and hat, Shenton,’ he said, breathing heavily.
It was an awkward silence that followed, one in which he could not bring himself to tell her he had been humbugged, one in which she waited in vain for him to express regret at being so brusque. That he did not do so, merely donning the called-for clothing before departing, made Emily cross.
‘Shenton, my cloak if you please.’
The steward looked at her questioningly, but in the face of her own direct and uncompromising glare he had no choice but to oblige. She emerged on to the deck of a ship in the act of coming about, lines of men running this way and that as they adjusted and realigned the sails. Now aware of the safest place to be, she took up a position between two of the quarterdeck cannon, watching a husband too busy with Collins and his charts and shoreline drawings to notice her presence. She was still there when, with HMS Brilliant settled on her new course, the gun crew returned to their station.
Pearce ignored the dig he got from Michael O’Hagan for staring at the captain’s wife, now only a few feet away. He also ignored the cursed injunction to stand still as he took a step to close that gap, too busy forming some words he could use to establish contact. Unaware of the man’s proximity Emily Barclay started as if she had seen a ghost when she half turned and he came into her eye line.
‘Pearce, you omhadhaun,’ hissed Michael. ‘Look away.’
‘Madam, you addressed me in French yesterday. Might I be allowed to ask why?’
‘Did I?’ Emily replied, flustered, feeling the warm blood began to fill her face as she blushed. That inadvertent use of French had been foolish in the extreme. She might as well have said to this man, “I have read your letter.”
‘An affectation of mine, I do assure you,’ she lied, which made her blush even more.
Pearce was enchanted by the beauty of that reddening face, putting the blush down to a becoming shyness, rather than duplicity. Smiling, he was just about to acknowledge the acceptance of her statement when her husband’s voice roared from across the other side of the deck.
‘You!’
‘Holy Christ, you are truly a fool, in English as well as the Erse.’ said Michael, as Pearce turned to look at Barclay, now advancing, his fist raised to strike. A sailor talking to Emily was bad enough – this one, a bloody landsman whom he’d already had occasion to clout, was tantamount to mutiny.
‘You dare to address my wife on my quarterdeck!’
Pearce felt his limbs begin to tremble and shaped to defend himself, mentally damming the consequences, sure that if Barclay laid a finger on him he was going to retaliate. His own bunched fists were ready, when the captain’s lady intervened.
‘It was I who spoke to him, husband.’ That stopped Ralph Barclay dead, as much the firm tone in her voice as the words themselves. ‘And I fail to see that a mere exchange of pleasantries should occasion such a reaction.’
He was still staring at Pearce when he said, ‘Mrs Barclay, you will oblige me by leaving the deck forthwith.’
‘I…’
‘This second, madam!’
‘I would plead that this man is innocent, husband.’
Barclay had to restrain himself from shouting at the top of his voice, but the tone of voice he employed was obvious enough. ‘Leave now!’
Emily did so, with a backward and sympathetic glance at Pearce, which enraged her husband even more. The two men were left staring at each other, the captain aware that if he struck this man, he would get a blow in return. The temptation to bring that on was high, for to strike a captain would see this bugger swing. Yet here he was, with an enemy in the offing, one he was once more pursuing. His dignity did not permit of a bout of fisticuffs.
‘Master at Arms, I want this man in irons.’
The whole ship had been watching, some fearing what might happen – others anticipating it with pleasure. Coyle, one of the latter and the man called to react, was alongside Pearce in a second, with a very willing Kemp to aid him in securing the prisoner. ‘You’re for it now, mate, an’ if the powers that be are kind, I’ll be the one swinging the cat,’ he snuffled happily.
Taken below, chained and locked in the cable tier, Pearce was not witness to the way the privateer, along with his capture, evaded Barclay and HMS Brilliant. Both ships were plain to see, the sleek barque and the Indiaman with her damaged bulwarks, smashed stern rail and the jeering men lining it, the Frenchman who had taken possession of her. The pursuit took the frigate in dangerously close to the rock-strewn shore of Brittany, to an inlet that his quarry knew well and Barclay did not. Eddies of water showed the location of the submerged rocks, while great rolling waves broke over those that were visible. By noon, on a high tide, both the chase and the Indiaman had entered a long inlet, forcing Barclay to haul off. The risk of going in further was too great, with uncharted rocks everywhere around that could rip out his bottom and sink him.
‘Mr Collins, have you yet managed to discern what is this place?’ The master replied with some certainty, ‘I believe it is the estuary of the River Trieux, Captain Barclay, and my charts tell me there is a small port about a half a mile inland called Lézardrieux.’
‘With deep water at low tide?’
‘I fear so.’
‘Mr Roscoe, Mr Collins and I will require the cutter to be launched. Once we are aboard her I wish you to take our ship out into deep water and out of sight of land. Please arrange a rendezvous with Mr Collins before we depart.’
A tiny mid-stream, uninhabited island allowed Ralph Barclay to enter the estuary without being observed from upriver, and provided, when he climbed to the top of the scrub-covered rock, a good view of what he faced, which avoided the need to take the cutter in close and reveal that he was reconnoitring the area. The two ships were anchored out in deep water, prows facing seawards. Lézardrieux lay on the western shore, a run of low buildings interspersed with the odd two- or three-storey edifice – really no more than a fishing village, dominated by a hillside church. A dilapidated bastion lay at the northern edge – a stone-fronted gun emplacement that had been allowed to fall into disrepair, though he could see cannon muzzles poking out and a certain amount of activity around the embrasures. Most of the local boats, small fishing smacks, were tied up in the lee of that.
Thick woods ran from the surrounding hills on both sides of the narrowing estuary down to slender strands of sandy beach. There was no sign of any occupancy – no farm or manor houses, though there was a good chance that such things existed inland, hidden from view by the tall trees. There would be few roads into a place like this. It was very likely a village that depended on the river for contact with the interior – a good place for a privateer to lay up without in any way drawing attention to itself.
The Lady Harrington was anchored upriver of its captor and Ralph Barclay could see boats plying to and fro disgorging men on to the shore. But of more interest was the fact that no cargo was being moved, which underlined his supposition that the Mercedes had run for this place to avoid him, and that as soon as Brilliant departed she would make for a bigger port, in all likelihood St Malo, a place where her crew could get a good price both for the cargo and find a willing buyer for such a valuable hull.
Could he get his ship in here and alongside the sod? If he could he knew that he could take the privateer with ease and at the same time subdue any fire from that rundown bastion. But there was the rub; he would need a favourable wind, which he did not have, and he would need to be quick, which ruled out towing Brilliant in with boats, for a slow approach would allow his enemies to mount a defence by warping both ships across the channel alongside the land-based cannon, thus presenting him with an array of fully manned guns he would find it hard to match. And his approach would be fraught with danger, bow on to broadsides. The damage they could inflict before he could swing round to bring his own guns to bear might be terminal, and that took no account of underwater hazards like submerged rocks or sandbars.
‘Mr Collins, your opinion on the risks of bringing HMS Brilliant into this estuary?’
The master, who had been busy sketching what they could see, so that his captain would have a record of their observations, actually shuddered at such a notion. ‘It would need a week of soundings afore I would even think of giving you an answer, sir.’
‘We do not have a week, Mr Collins.’
‘Then, sir, I must most emphatically advise against it.’
If a man as timorous as Collins was wont to make such a clear-cut statement, then most certainly the risk was too great. But Ralph Barclay was conscious of one very pertinent fact; that he had to find a way to try and get that Indiaman back – his whole future could depend on it.
‘Mr Collins, I require you to remain here overnight, and I will detail some men to stay with you. I will take with me what you have already drawn, and wish you to make what observations you can before darkness falls. But more pertinent is what you can see at first light when the tide is lower. No fires, even on the seaward side of the island, so I fear you will be cold, for flames and smoke will alert anyone looking from those hills above the woods, or even from the port itself to your presence. I will send a boat in to pick you up before the tide peaks tomorrow.’
It was dark before the cutter rejoined the ship, even though Roscoe had brought HMS Brilliant inshore to the pre-arranged rendezvous as soon as the light of the day began to fade. In a long, uncomfortable and wet journey, in an open boat with only his foul weather cloak to protect him, Ralph Barclay had found many things to worry about, and he was also, after a long and dispiriting day, wet through and very tired. An argument with his wife about naval discipline the moment he made his cabin he did not need, and had no desire to engage in. But Emily would not be fobbed off.
‘I find it utterly barbaric, Captain Barclay, that you can even consider punishing a man for merely talking to me.’
‘It is not you, my dear, but what you represent.’
‘I do not represent anything.’
‘You do,’ Barclay insisted. ‘Me!’
The mutual stare was short but telling, with both parties thinking along the same lines; had it been a wise decision for Emily to come on board ship? Ralph Barclay was deliberating that if Emily could not comprehend the absolute requirement for discipline then he was in for a difficult time. She was thinking that the proximity imposed by the cramped accommodation, in which each party saw too much of the other, never mind actions of which she thoroughly disapproved, was inimical to harmonious relations.
At the base of Emily’s concern was the knowledge that she had been foolish; she should never have addressed this Pearce fellow at all, even out of politeness, and certainly not in French. Ralph Barclay had a nagging thought at the back of his own mind; wondering if she had, as she had said, spoken first, and if so what had been the content of her conversation, for he could not forget her reluctance to translate that letter.
‘I am asking, husband, as a favour to me, that no punishment is given to that sailor, for I swear he is innocent of any crime. Any transgression was mine, and I must bear any reprimand you choose to issue.’
It was tempting to give way to such a supplicant look and the very obvious manner, which denoted a future full of submission; a mere allusion to this moment would be enough to quell these burgeoning signs of wifely determination. Against that he had been publicly insulted, by a pressed seaman on his own quarterdeck. To allow that to pass, with the officers he had aboard and his crew yet to take his full measure, could lead to all sorts of problems. Ralph Barclay had seen it before – one act of leniency seen as weakness, which allowed the whole system of naval discipline to collapse. He was contemplating battle, one which he would trust no other to lead, and the sooner the entire ship’s company, including his wife, understood he would brook no dissent, the better.
‘Shenton,’ he called, saying slowly and deliberately as his servant appeared. ‘A message to Mr Roscoe, that I require the sentence of punishment for the man in irons to be carried out at first light, before the decks are cleaned. I will decide what that is to be dependent upon his attitude, but it will most certainly require a grating to be rigged and the bosun to make up a cat.’
Then, looking into the still-pleading eyes of his wife, he added. ‘You do not understand, my dear.’
The sudden light sent the rats, which had been scrabbling around the cable tier eager to investigate a warm living body, scurrying for cover. The lantern also lit up Pearce, who was sitting on a slimy cable, chains round his wrist, and the face of Lieutenant Digby, who held it out before him.
‘The captain has decided to institute the punishment in the morning.’ Seeing Pearce’s look of incomprehension, he added, ‘It is customary for such a thing to be carried out on the following day.’
‘And what is the punishment to be?’ asked Pearce.
‘If you plead for leniency, perhaps it will be nothing more than a verbal reprimand.’
‘Do you believe that, Mr Digby?’
‘No.’
‘Am I to be flogged?’
Digby nodded, and Pearce fought to prevent a very natural shudder as the lieutenant added, ‘But I do know that a plea has a chance of reducing the number of lashes you may receive, to perhaps as little as half a dozen.’
‘That requires that I plead to Barclay, does it not?’
‘Captain Barclay,’ Digby insisted. ‘And it is I who will do the pleading, you are merely required to look contrite.’
Pearce was aware that, possibly, he was being foolish – any plea Digby made would not be believed by anyone who heard it anyway, least of all the man who wished to chastise him. So was it a meaningless gesture to decline such alleviation? His father’s voice was in his ear then, telling him, as he had all his life, that most of men’s folly was brought about by pride, and it was that which he could not swallow.
‘That, I am afraid, I will not do.’
‘All hands aft to witness punishment, Mr Roscoe,’ said Ralph Barclay, looking south to an empty sea, grey as it reflected the colour of the sky, devoid even of the fishing boats he had expected to see, the very same vessels he had observed tied up by that bastion at Lézardrieux.
HMS Brilliant had hauled off from the Brittany shore once more and it was no longer in view. He had already formulated most of a plan to cut out both ships that very night; when the master rejoined that would finalised, but he had no intention of alerting his opponents by beating to and fro in full view throughout the day. Let them think he had gone back to his convoy. That way he would gain the most telling advantage: surprise.
The bosun’s mates had rigged the grating to the poop rail and the marines, fully dressed and armed, were lined up behind that, overseeing the deck on which the crew would congregate, the captain’s protection against protest. All the officers and midshipmen were in full dress, best blue coats, number one scrapers on their heads, swords at their waist, held by one white-gloved hand, and they moved to head their divisions as the men took their place. Barclay was at the windward side of the quarterdeck, staring idly out to sea, the picture of unconcern. But he was no fool, he knew what he was about would be unpopular, not because this fellow Pearce was a favourite amongst the crew – he was after all a landsman – but because they would be aware he was being punished to discourage any others who might be tempted to be over-free with his wife.
Roscoe called out as soon as the assembly was complete, ‘Master at Arms, bring forth the prisoner.’
Pearce, standing by the companionway, was aware that the trembling he always experienced before a fight was wholly absent. And yet he was very afraid – afraid of the pain that was coming, as well as the mutilation to his skin. But the greater fear was of personal disgrace; that he might not bear himself as he thought he should – take the punishment, make not a sound, make no gift to Barclay of a pleading or supplicant look. He might break down and scream for mercy and that image, as Coyle edged him up the companionway steps, induced the greatest degree of dread.
The whispered words as he passed from a crew that was, in the main, still strange, had a profound effect. ‘Head up, mate’ hissed one, that amongst many a ‘Good luck’ and ‘It ain’t right.’ Even Devenow, as he passed him, gave him a slow nod, an unsmiling one for sure given his jaw was yet to heal, but nevertheless an acknowledgement that he did not approve of what Barclay was doing. His fellow Pelicans, when he saw them standing in their ranks, all had an attitude, which ranged from Michael O’Hagan’s barely suppressed fury, to Rufus’s inability to look at what he knew was going to be gory.
Then he was in an open space, a square formed by the rise of the poop and the assembled men, able to see clearly the grating to which he would be lashed, to see little Martin Dent in his red coat and hat, trying not to grin, ready with his black-covered side drum and sticks to provide the muffled rat-a-tat-tat that would cover the flogging of the man who had broken his still swollen nose. He was every bit as gleeful, Pearce reckoned, as those brute women, like Madame Defarge, who sat knitting at the bottom of the guillotine steps.
How different to Paris and the scene around that instrument. This was ordered and silent; a revolutionary beheading was strident and smelly, a dense crowd packed tight in a cobbled square eager to ensure that each prisoner brought to the block knew that they thought him a traitor. The stink of packed, unwashed humanity mingled with the very relevant smell of voided bowels as those about to die first clapped eyes on the instrument by which they would be dispatched. On this deck the air was clean, there was a breeze that would carry away any smell should he fail to control his own muscles. And he was not about to die – instead of a guillotine he was threatened by the contents of a red baize bag held by Sykes, the Bosun. He would be humiliated, he would be bloodied, but he would live.
Emily Barclay came on deck, which set up a murmur that rippled through the entire assembly, quickly suppressed by the divisional officers. Her husband’s body actually quivered with the effort not to show his shock at her presence: there was no sham indifference now – the desire to tell her to get back to his cabin was very evident in his contorted features. Pearce, too, was surprised. He jerked his head to curtail the natural desire to look at her again. Overborne by cries of ‘Silence there’, Emily Barclay merely nodded to her husband and, wordlessly, ascended the steps to a point on the poop from which she could observe proceedings.
‘Mr Digby,’ croaked Barclay, ‘this man is in your division, and has been arraigned here on the charge of disobedience to a direct order.’ There was a pause, the point at which Barclay should have read out the specific charge, but it passed in silence from a captain who exercised his right to disoblige. ‘Do you wish to plead for him?’
Digby stepped forward smartly and raised his hat. ‘He has expressly requested that I do not, sir.’
That set up a soft murmur all along the deck that had every voice of authority calling for silence.
‘Has he by damn!’ Barclay’s eyes were wide open with surprise, Pearce’s closed as if he was again wondering at his own folly. ‘I have scarce heard of such arrogance.’
‘It is not, sir,’ Digby added, in a measured tone, ‘a sentiment that I am familiar with. But I am bound to respect, perhaps even admire, any man who espouses such a plea.’
Digby might as well have slapped his captain with those words. Did Barclay see the nods, slight but visible, from the crew, the eyes of his officers raised a fraction higher to denote dissension, the look of unhappiness on Roscoe’s face and the drooping shoulders of Sykes? Emily Barclay’s head dropped in a gesture of sadness, as though she was seeing a champion humiliated.
Barclay snarled his response. ‘You may respect such a person Mr Digby, you may even extend to admiration, I do not! To my mind it comes under the heading of the same degree of arrogance that sees him here in the first place. But I am man enough to respect the request. We will see if he is so haughty after two dozen of the cat. Bosun, seize him up.’
Coyle struck off the chains that bound Pearce’s hands, as Ridley and Costello, the two bosun’s mates who had acted as his tutors, approached. At least, thought Pearce, sensing no malice in them, it was not that rat-faced bastard Kemp who so relished the thought of inflicting pain.
‘Your shirt, mate,’ said Ridley, in a kindly voice, while Costello added, white teeth flashing, ‘No good gifting the purser extra profit.’
Pearce was confused. The image he had of a flogging, the common tale recounted by everyone he had met who had witnessed such a thing, was of a calculated brutality designed to humiliate the offender and discourage others from transgression. These men were supposed to handle him in a rough manner, bind him tight to that grating then rip his shirt off his back, not help him pull it over his head, roll it up and hand it to Charlie Taverner for safekeeping. They led him without compulsion to the grating and tied him in such a manner that he was secure enough not to fall, yet not so tightly bound as to deny blood to his outstretched hands. A strip of hard leather was produced, well chewed by the look of it, and a gentle hand was placed on Pearce’s shoulder, as Ridley said, ‘Bite hard on this, mate.’
Beyond Ridley, Pearce could see Sykes. Standing next to Barclay, he opened the red baize bag, reached into it and pulled out a cat o’ nine tails, that black, menacing and iniquitous whip. He shook it so that each of the nine lines hung loose, then swung it quickly to create a swish that promised much pain, which brought from his commanding officer a nod of approval. Costello came back into view, to take off the bosun the instrument of punishment, likewise swinging it in test, as he moved to stand behind his victim. Finally Barclay spoke, loud and clear, so that he could be heard in the forepeak.
‘Bosun, carry out the punishment.’
As he tensed himself, Pearce had a sudden thought that this was inevitable; the sure knowledge that he could never have so knuckled down to the nature of naval discipline to avoid a flogging. Not that he could accept the right of anyone to inflict it on him – that flew in the face of everything he believed. And what was it about the men witnessing this that they could watch in silence and not act to prevent it? What was it that made such people accept the disciplinary right of a man to beat them to a pulp merely because he wore a blue coat and couple of epaulettes, and carried in his pocket a piece of paper from an even bigger set of rogues allocating to him a wholly specious authority?
Why were there so few men like his father who were prepared not only to speak out against injustice, but to do so despite personal risk – to say to those who wished to protect their wealth and property that any fight they created was not one in which those who were dispossessed wished to be part, for it was they who were maimed or killed. But they did. Pearce had seen the eager faces, heard the excited talk, when they had first chased that privateer – men like Dysart, Ridley and Costello would happily slaughter any Frenchman that Barclay told them to, quite unable to grasp that the same trick was being played by some foreign authority on their opponents. If they were not prepared to alleviate their own lot, to raise themselves from the dearth that such a life imposed, was it worth one drop of breath to persuade them to try? That had been an ever-growing doubt in the last few years, from the point where he had stopped believing everything his father said, and began to have the doubts natural to a growing intelligence.
He could imagine the scene at his back, Costello setting himself for the blow, legs spread for purchase, arm well back to maximise the strength of the cut. And he heard it before it struck, the sound reminiscent of a venomous snake he had once seen in a Parisian fanum of natural wonders, and to him just as deadly. The sting, as the nine tails struck home made him shudder and bite hard on the leather. Yet Pearce knew himself to be shocked more than pained, for the feeling across his back was one of a spreading numbness, not the agony he had anticipated. The next blow came while that thought was still in his mind.
Pearce had been beaten in every one of the many schools he had attended, for fighting, for impudence, or some other misdemeanour, with varying degrees of hurt dependent on the cruelty of the pedagogue determined to quell his rebellious nature. Such whippings had been administered to his bared posterior not his back, but he could recall right now, as more blows landed on him, that, while he was smarting, he had experienced worse pain than this. The sound of heavy breathing behind him testified to the amount of effort being expended by Costello, but that was not being replicated on his own flesh. Had all those tales he had heard about naval punishment been so much stuff – or might he find that the pain would come later, that his skin was not as whole as he supposed, but a mass of bleeding lacerations that would suppurate for weeks before healing.
Michael O’Hagan was seething, on the balls of his feet, glaring at the captain, his heart pounding as he fought his own demons. He wanted to rush across the deck and lift Barclay up by the neck, which he would then break before slinging him overboard to drown in green water. Yet mad as Michael was, the line of marines acted as a check on his desires – he would only get a musket ball for his pains, long before he could kill Ralph Barclay, and what good would that do? He took comfort in conjuring up the ways he would employ to dispose of the bastard should a future chance occur.
Charlie Taverner wasn’t interested in the captain – he was more concerned with the punishment. So far the victim had not cried out, an achievement Taverner thought he would be unable to replicate. He was jerking as much as Pearce, especially when the fourth blow brought real pain, a cry stifled by that leather strap, striking as it did in a place already assailed, and as the number rose so did the hurt. Each time Taverner heard the numeral and observed John Pearce’s body coil up in anticipation, he winced himself at the spasm which followed the thwack of contact.
Rufus still had his eyes closed, and what he saw behind those lids was much worse than the reality. He too had heard of the horrors of a naval flogging, of the cuts inflicted by the cat that, once a blow had landed repeatedly on the same spot, opened the skin to expose the white bones of the victim’s ribs. The John Pearce in his imagination was no longer standing, but was slumped, hanging on the lashings that tied him to the grating, while his own blood formed a pool around his bare feet, and bits of his flesh flew in all directions as the cat o’ nine tails slashed back and forth.
Cornelius Gherson was fascinated by the spectacle, not at all squeamish about the pain being visited on his messmate, even a little disappointed that there was not more in the way of gore. The humbling of Pearce he could easily endure, for before him was a fellow too full of himself, by far, prone to giving out orders as if he had some kind of authority and probing into matters which were none of his concern. The disbelief that had greeted his attempt to explain the events of the previous night – that mere curiosity had got him into trouble – had been particularly galling. Doubly galling was the way the others had responded when they tired of his grunts, Taverner almost calling him a liar to his face and that stripling Dommet making a snide reference to cats and nine lives.
He was not about to tell any of them what he had overheard, the sound of a group of sailors talking treason, that gambling was just a cover for an activity that would see them damned by a man like Barclay or any other captain for that matter. They would have accepted his explanation for his presence, that he had been attracted by the sound of dice, if the boy Dent had not observed the length of time he had eavesdropped on the quiet conversation taking place in the cutter. That was another gripe to lay against Pearce. It was his feud with the boy that had endangered the whole mess and nearly got him killed.
And what drivel he had overheard, from men whose ignorance was staggering; talk of rights and abuses, and ways to make life in general, and particularly that aboard ship, better for the common sailor, of pay not raised for a hundred years or more, captains too fond of the lash and pursers who cheated on their accounts. Half-baked notions he had thought as he listened; useful information though in the strange world in which he now found himself, particularly the obvious fact that while such forbidden talk might be kept from those in authority, it must be known and tolerated amongst the experienced members of the crew. His friend Molly had evinced no surprise when Gherson asked him to convey to the men who had nearly dumped him into the sea that their secret was safe, even from those with whom he shared a mess table.
Another thwack brought him back to the present, and to the notion that what was happening on this deck barely rated against the pleasure he had derived from a bloody cockfight or a decent bear baiting in which dogs had torn at the fur and flesh of the bear. It could not hold a candle to a pair of Bull Mastiffs at each other’s throats. There was a moment in which, seeing the bosun’s mate prepare another swing, he had to restrain himself from crying out encouragement, as he would have done at any one of those spectacles.
Emily Barclay looked at the line of indifferent marines, men who had the air of having witnessed much of this before, since she did not want to look at the punishment being inflicted because of her. Each administered blow was like a lash on her conscience. She knew each time the cat landed her husband’s eyes flicked in her direction, so she set her face not to react in any way. But inside it seemed the rhythm of the blows matched that of her heart, the thudding of which felt just as heavy.
‘Pray I have the courage to resist this, when I have power to command it.’
Digby said these words over and over in his mind. He could not speak them, for to do so would diminish him in the eyes of his fellow officers. It was not a thought he had often, when he dreamt of promotion and command. But along with the pleasurable anticipation of privacy, of the space of his own cabin, of the power of decision in battle, lay this: punishment was held by the more enlightened to make a good man bad and a bad man worse. That he would have to order it, if only to contain the endemic drunks who took the flogging as part of the whole, hard bargains who would take a dozen without complaint, did not ease his mind.
This was different. Pearce was no hard case who had spent a life at sea and could walk straight from the cat to his duty. What would it do to him? Would he become a menace like Devenow, a bully who was as lazy as he was vindictive? Henry Digby hoped that he would not, just as he hoped he would, in the future, have the courage with such men to hand out punishment that was deserved, and the wisdom to eschew it when it was not.
Time had stopped for Pearce, for he was now feeling pain. Not what he thought he would feel, but no part of his back had escaped the twenty lashes he had endured. The pressure was kept up by switching the bosun’s mates after the first dozen – Ridley was flogging him now. And while he was no believer in God he prayed for a release from this. His thighs ached from the need to hold up his body, his jaw clamped on that leather strap from the need to deny Barclay the satisfaction of seeing him fold, and he could feel the pressure increasing on his wrists as he fought to maintain his upright position.
Ralph Barclay knew he had been humbugged, but he could no more show the fact than say anything. Seething inside, he had to maintain on his face the austere indifference of the commander who could observe pain without emotion, the same pose he would assume in battle when shot, shell and splinters were flying round his ears. But it was hard, made more so by the way he could not prevent himself from glancing in the direction of his wife. He could remain aloof from his own frustration, he could remain remote from the feelings of the men who stood on this deck, but he could not maintain indifference with Emily. That was impossible, even though he knew just how much it weakened him in his own estimation.
‘Twenty-four sir,’ said the Bosun, stepping forward to take the cat ‘o nine tails from Ridley.
Lost in that last thought, Ralph Barclay had to drag himself back to the present, before turning to the surgeon. ‘Very well, cut him down. Mr Lutyens I hand him over to your care. I would see him well and back at his duties with some despatch. Carry on, Mr Roscoe.’
Then he looked at the deck, and the tarpaulin that had been spread to catch the blood. After a normal flogging he would have added the need to clean that up. He did not have to do that now – there wasn’t any.
‘Humbugged,’ he said under his breath, before looking up towards his wife, who probably thought she had witnessed the real thing. ‘I think, Mrs Barclay, that you would be best off the deck, as it is about to be cleaned.’
As Emily obliged, without looking at him, he added, ‘Mr Roscoe, send in the cutter to bring off Mr Collins.’