When Barclay emerged he had the truth of the tale. Burns had not admitted how little he had personally achieved, nor did he over-praise the man who had actually led them. But then he didn’t have to, for as Captain Barclay informed him he was the senior in the party, and even if he was only a slip of a mid, he was, by the very nature of his coat and rank, in command, so all the glory accrued to him.
‘And I shall have pleasure in saying so in my despatch. I don’t doubt it will be well received by higher authority. I would say, Mr Burns, that such a feat will make your name in the service. Now, oblige me by sending my barge back to Brilliant so we can get a proper prize crew aboard this vessel. And once that has been achieved it would give me great pleasure, nay pride, to invite you to dine with myself and Mrs Barclay.’
Then he looked to where Pearce stood, giving him that same baleful stare as he had the day he had first come aboard. ‘Naturally, that will mean the return of the men you led to our own ship.’
‘Mr Burns,’ Pearce said, ignoring Barclay. ‘We need the surgeon.’
Barclay said nothing till the midshipman repeated the request, and nodded once he did.
The whole ship knew the truth within ten minutes of their own men corning back aboard. Dysart and Martin Dent were quizzed rather than the Pelicans, which set up a buzz that had Hale calling on his captain, though unhappily, for his account did not make pleasant hearing. What he reported was not the truth, for it had grown in the telling, making gods out of mere mortals. What was galling was the frequency with which Pearce’s name came up, especially since Emily Barclay could hear every word his coxswain was saying, having sat in uninvited to listen to the conversation. That forced the coxswain to filter what had been said about the behaviour of Midshipman Burns.
‘Surely that is good news, husband,’ said Emily, once Hale had departed. ‘That a member of your crew should show such ability.’
Ralph Barclay waited for her to say ‘volunteer’, dreading that she might do so. He was seething inwardly, for the last two days with his wife had been hard indeed, and these were almost the first civil words she had spoken to him since he had flogged this man she seemed to want to hail as a hero. Emily was not unaware of the effect of her words; it had never occurred to her that she might have power inside her marriage, but the argument over that flogging, and the way her husband had acted since then, half blustering, half timid, was enough to show her that she had a substantial amount. The trouble was knowing how to use it; for certain it would be fatal to overplay her hand. Meekly applied pressure was forceful enough.
‘You feel I should reward him?’
‘Only, Captain Barclay, if you think that it is merited. It is, after all, beyond my competence to judge.’
It was difficult to reply in an even tone. ‘Let me think on it.’
He scarce got time for that, for Twyman came aboard demanding to see him, insisting that he remove his prize crew forthwith, ‘For at best, Captain Barclay, the Lady Harrington is salvage.’
‘Salvage?’ Barclay exploded. ‘You are taken by that French dog, rescued from confinement by a party led by one of my midshipmen…’ He had to stop then, for the look on this merchant seaman’s face was too startled to continue.
‘Midshipman. The little lily-livered bastard hid away the whole time.’
‘Language, sir,’ Barclay barked, glad that Emily had gone to the sickbay to assist Lutyens, and so would not hear these words. ‘This interview is at an end now. You have just seen fit to insult a cousin of my own wife, a boy she holds dear to her breast.’
‘It matters not who did what,’ Twyman insisted. ‘The ship was not in enemy hands for the required time.’
‘I think, sir, that an Admiralty court will be the judge of that.’
Barclay did not really resent Twyman’s anger or his insults. Nor did he mind the fact that he was lying about the time spent in captivity. After all, as a prize taken by a King’s ship he would get not a penny; as salvage Twyman and his crew would do well, though they might be obliged in extreme circumstances to share their good fortune with the crew of Brilliant. No one, least of all Barclay, could resent a fellow trying to fight his corner when there was money involved. Against that he had a degree of confidence. Ommaney and Druce would present his case to the Admiralty Prize Court at Lincoln’s Inn with the kind of zeal occasioned by the notion of profit. The ship’s insurers, coffee house vandals, would no doubt put up a good legal team as well. Twyman counted as nothing in the scheme of things. At best he would be given a chance to make a written submission, one that would not tally with that sent in by himself and Burns.
‘I intend that your ship should sail back to an English port.’
‘Under my direction,’ Twyman insisted.
‘No, sir! Under the hand of one of my officers.’
‘This is an outrage.’
‘You may term it so, I term it prudent.’
They argued for an hour and a half, back and forth, while Barclay, whose mind was firmly made up, so that he only had to respond by rebuttal, used the time to think. Time and again, as Twyman repeated the same grievance, altering the words only slightly, Ralph Barclay conjured up the face of John Pearce, very much with that look of belligerence he had displayed the morning he had been sworn in. The man was a menace, and Barclay wished he had left him in that alley by the Pelican. But he had not, and he was on his ship; what to do about him?
Without his wife aboard, it would have been easy; he had seen troublemakers flogged into submission before. But Emily would make his life a misery if he tried, and it was no comfort to him to know that she could, something she had already proved. Where did the shrew in her come from, for it had never before been evident? Yet she had found looks that made him feel like a scrub, silences that made him feel foolish, and attitudes that made him seethe with impotence.
Slowly, as Twyman ranted on, a solution presented itself, and having arrived at that he brought the argument to a conclusion by alluding to the possibility that the crewman from the Indiaman might find himself clapped in irons if he did not desist.
Hale came into the cabin as soon as the coast was clear, to fill in the bits of the story he had left out for the captain’s wife: how her little cousin had behaved in action. It did not make for a pretty tale and added another layer of anxiety to Ralph Barclay’s complex peregrinations.
‘The captain wants to see you, Pearce,’ said Lieutenant Digby, who was now confirmed as acting Premier.
Pearce looked up from his mess table, where he was once more obliged to take his ease, doubly uncomfortable because he was forever put to the blush with Taverner, Rufus and Michael singing his heroic praises, conscious that such praise had Gherson seething.
‘Am I allowed to refuse?’
Digby had to suck in air – hard and audibly – through clenched teeth. Being acting Premier meant if he had no way of imposing discipline by dint of personality, he had no recourse to anything other than the Articles of War. Pearce should have leapt to his feet as soon as he addressed him – that he had not done so was in itself a punishable offence, but looking into those defiant eyes he knew that even that threat would not wash.
‘Would you believe me if I said that it might be in your favour to do so?’
Pearce was aware that the exchange had not gone unnoticed by the rest of the crew, just as he knew how much he had challenged Digby’s authority by staying seated. Given that Digby was the only officer who had remotely shown any kindness, Pearce knew that the man did not deserve it. Slowly he stood, and lifted his hand. Breathing stopped on the whole maindeck then, with men wondering if he was going to hit the acting Premier – the bugger was mad by all reckoning, so anything was possible – but Pearce put his fist to his forehead and gave him the required salute.
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
‘Follow me,’ said Digby, turning away to hide his relief, quickly enough to see the eyes of the crew diverted.
Having sent for Pearce, Ralph Barclay had the task of asking his wife to leave the cabin, including the coach, where she was wont to spend her time. It was a delicate task because by doing so, he alluded to the notion that she might eavesdrop.
‘I plead, my dear, the interests of the man himself, for we have seen that this Pearce has a high opinion and few manners. I fear he may say something untoward, and if it is overheard by you I would have no choice but to react.’
‘I will happily take a turn on the deck. With your permission I may ask my cousin Mr Burns to join me. I am agog to hear of his adventures.’
‘I shall send for him,’ Barclay replied, thinking that to eavesdrop on that exchange would be illuminating.
Emily was on the windward side of the quarterdeck by the time Pearce came aft, barefooted and coatless again. That part of the quarterdeck was the preserve of the ship’s captain, a place where he – and his wife – were allowed to walk undisturbed in the freshest air available. That her eye was on the man of the hour was not to be remarked upon; everyone on the ship was looking at him. All she got was a flick in her direction as Pearce crossed the divide, passing the mainmast towards the officer’s preserve. She tried to respond with an expression of reassurance, sure as she was that her husband, faced with her disapproval, was about to mellow. Burns came trailing in Pearce’s wake, but Emily Barclay did not observe the looks he got from the crew, which could hardly be said to be flattering.
‘Mr Burns, come walk with me and tell me what you have been up to. I am sure now that you are a hero Captain Barclay would not mind.’
Burns still hesitated, for the windward side was sacrosanct when the captain or his lady graced the deck. It was Digby, turning from having delivered his charge, who saved his face, being one of the people aboard yet to be told the whole truth about the cutting out of the Lady Harrington. He said, ‘Carry on, Mr Burns. I am sure the captain would have no objection.’
‘Now, cousin,’ Emily whispered, ‘from the very beginning.’
Toby Burns had had time to think, had talked to the captain, heard himself referred to in heroic terms and faced and boasted to his fellow midshipmen. So he now had a story to tell that put him in a good light, from the very moment he had warned Lieutenant Thrale that he was off-course. Cousin Emily heard how his action had saved some of the crew; how, reluctant as he was, he had had to take command. She heard of the difficulty of one so young as he ordered about grown men to get them to act for their own sake in the face of their natural lethargy and their sense of despair. His role in the freeing of the prisoners was central – and he was working off what Pearce and O’Hagan had reprised of that affair – he being the only one small enough to slip through a skylight at the top of a securely locked door and attack the guard.
‘He was asleep, cousin,’ he added hastily. ‘So it was not a difficult thing.’
‘Were you not terrified?’
Chest puffed out, Burns replied, ‘Petrified is a better word, but I knew I had to do my duty. So many men’s lives depended on it.’
‘And the taking of the ship, the destruction of the privateer, Toby?’
‘The men must take praise for that, for I am only one; they fought like demons, outnumbered too. But I have a small hope that they would acknowledge that my plans and my instructions, plus the encouragement I gave them in battle, played some part in our success.’
The kiss that Cousin Emily planted on his cheek, the words that he was indeed a hero, were music to his ears.
Barclay kept Pearce waiting, going over the thoughts he had harboured earlier. The concern that was uppermost was not of his wife’s disapproval, but the attitude of his crew when he had flogged the man; then, that moment on deck when Pearce had nearly struck him. He was aware that his men were not, on either occasion, with him. Sensitivity to the feelings of a crew was a paramount part of being a good commander, and Ralph Barclay had no doubt he was that.
‘Fetch him in,’ he said to Shenton, ‘then I want everyone out of earshot, so make sure you tell Mr Digby to clear the poop.’
Both sets of eyes lifted to the skylight above Barclay’s head, a fine place for a senior member of the crew to listen in on cabin gossip. There was a pause while this order was carried out, then the marine sentry showed Pearce in and escorted Shenton out. Still scruffy from his adventures, unshaven and his ducks streaked with everything from gunpowder smoke to mud, Pearce did not look like much to trouble a Post Captain. But he did trouble him, and in a way that undermined both Barclay’s domestic and professional well being. There was no invitation to sit, just as Pearce gave no salute, keeping his balled fists firmly by his sides.
‘Mr Burns told me you behaved well.’
He nodded slightly, unblinking; the man had presence – there was no doubt of that, but Barclay had dealt with people of greater merit than this rogue and was not about to be put off his stroke.
‘I would be obliged if you would tell me how he behaved?’
‘I think whatever he told you would be as close to the truth as you need to know.’
‘Do you have any reason to feel that you should not be aboard this ship?’
‘No more than ten or twenty others, and as to reasons I think you know them all.’
Barclay tapped his fingers on his desk, holding Pearce’s look with his own. ‘I am minded to show you some favour, for you and your fellows have helped Mr Burns to deliver to this ship a valuable prize. But I must warn you that insolence is not likely to aid that.’
‘Let us just say then that I am not bred to the sea.’
‘I am curious to know what you are bred to.’
‘The freedom to choose my time of waking and sleeping, eating and washing.’
Ralph Barclay was getting nowhere. He was going to have this man off his ship, for reasons that had nothing to do with kindness, but he wanted Pearce to hint at some gratitude.
‘I am minded to grant you that for which you ask.’
‘That also applies to the men brought back aboard with me.’
Barclay laughed. ‘You’ll be asking me to free them too?’
Pearce stiffened then, though he tried to hide it. Was what Barclay said a slip of the tongue, or did he mean it? ‘I speak of men who did just as much as I, maybe more, to retake the Lady Harrington.’
‘I fear you must leave them behind.’
‘No. If I go, those in my mess must go too.’
Inwardly Pearce was screaming at his own foolishness. He was being offered what he wanted most and turning it down.
‘Am I to understand,’ Barclay demanded, leaning forward with a smile of disbelief, ‘that you would forfeit your own chance to be out of the Navy for them?’
God, thought Pearce, I’m as much of a gambler as this bastard before me, and just as likely to be a loser.
Had Pearce been able to see inside his opponent’s mind, he would have found a confused train of thought added to a tinge of jealousy, which led inexorably to a clear conclusion for Ralph Barclay. How would the freeing of Pearce look to Emily? There was a nagging suspicion that she had taken a shine to this fellow, hence the jealousy. Then there were his officers and the crew. How would the discharge of one man, whom he had flogged for paying attention to his wife, be perceived, let alone the release of several when he was short-handed and clearly could not spare any men?
Pearce was looking hard at Barclay, trying to guess what he was thinking, when the captain suddenly smiled, then nodded, and said. ‘Very well, you may go and tell your mess to collect their possessions. Please be so good as to ask Mr Burns to join me.’ Barclay picked up a quill, looked at Pearce, looked down again, and said, ‘That is all.’
‘It’s our reward for taking that ship,’ said Pearce, when word came to get their dunnage together, ‘and I think he sees us all as trouble.’
‘I care not,’ cooed Gherson, which earned him an old-fashioned look from Pearce, who when he had said his mess, had somehow forgotten that Corny was part of it.
Michael just beamed and said, ‘I am going to go and kiss that bastard Devenow on his one good cheek.’
Charlie Taverner was speechless but happy, Rufus doubtful. The one who stuck was Ben Walker.
‘I’ll stay, if you don’t mind.’
Charlie was shocked. ‘We started together, Ben, we should stick together, mates.’
‘In misfortune, Charlie,’ Ben insisted, his eyes slightly wet. ‘What are you going back to when you get ashore? The Liberties, or a life outside dodging tipstaff warrants?’
‘I am not going back to that, Ben, I swear, nor to London. I’ll find a place where I’m unknown. Time I put my back into some work, made a bit of myself. Maybe together it would be easier to prosper.’
‘I wish you joy,’ Ben replied, slowly shaking his head, a look of determination on his face. ‘I’m staying.’
Dysart, now with his arm in a sling, called from the steps to the lower deck. ‘Trunks are out of the hold. Come and get yer dunnage. And Pearce, Mr Lutyens says he wants a word.’
They made for the companionway, all except Pearce and Ben Walker. ‘You’re sure, Ben?’
‘I am, Pearce. There’s nowt for me ashore.’ He let his eyes drift round the maindeck. ‘Maybe if Abel was still alive, I might go, for he was wont to see to our care. Charlie, well I like him but he’s no fellow to go relying on. Who knows, there might just be something here.’
‘Ben, I have to ask you.’ He put a hand up as Walker stiffened. ‘And I know I have no right. But it would grieve me to go through life knowing you as I have without any inkling as to what kept you in the Liberties.’
‘I have a notion to know what brought you there.’
‘It’s a long story, Ben, but I do face arrest. You?’
It took a while, a degree of thought, before Ben said, ‘Twixt thee and me?’
‘On my life, Ben.’
Walker’s shoulders drooped, as if disclosure added a weight to his conscience rather than relieving it. ‘A girl, Pearce. Love – another blade, handsome cove, tall like you and blue-eyed, a charmer. Then betrayal. I went too far to right matters, made them worse.’
Pearce didn’t have to ask how far was too far. It was all in Ben Walker’s slumped posture. ‘Someone died?’
‘Someone dear.’
‘If Michael’s God exists, I’m sure he will forgive you.’
‘He’ll have to, Pearce, for as sure as hell is hot I will never forgive myself.’
Lutyens looked out of his little surgery to ensure no prying ears before he spoke to Pearce.
‘Here, take this letter.’ Pearce made no move to accept the folded paper being proffered. ‘If you don’t, you will most certainly regret it.’
‘Will I?’
‘Damn, you’re a hard man to help,’ Lutyens replied, in an exasperated tone. ‘This is to my father, and is about your father.’
‘I’m not sure I like the sound of that.’
‘You will when I tell you that my father is the Lutheran pastor of the Deutschkirke in London. You will be even more pleased if I tell you that Queen Charlotte, particularly, worships there often, the King less so. My father is highly regarded by both. Perhaps you will even mellow if I say that a plea can be made directly to His Majesty on your father’s behalf from someone he trusts, which I hazard would be more effective than the same from some of his old radical friends.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Pearce, holding out his hand for a letter that was pure gold. Farmer George only had to click his fingers to get a warrant lifted.
‘I mention you as well,’ Lutyens added, turning away, ‘and I have asked that he extend to you both hospitality and his protection.’
‘Why?’
Lutyens turned back, his voice thick and the strange consonants more pronounced, nailing what Pearce had thought at first, that English was not his native language. ‘You are a strange fellow, Pearce, singular in fact. There are far too few like you. And no man should suffer merely for his bloodline, nor might I add for his beliefs. You should be free to do and say as you like, for if we are fighting anything we are in conflict with a tyranny in France that will not accept the right of any man to that.’
‘That’s sounds remarkably akin to the American Declaration of Independence.’
‘That may be so. But it is what I have always believed. Now go, before I regret my altruism.’
‘Here are your orders, Mr Burns, and a despatch for the Admiralty. You are to take our Indiaman into port and hand her over to whichever senior officer has the command on that station. Then you will deliver this packet to Whitehall.’
Barclay grinned, Pearce’s letter was inside his own, and it would go into hands that knew how to exploit it; let the arrogant sod suck on that!
‘To you will go the glory of the capture, as well as the complete destruction of an enemy privateer. Who knows, you may even get a Gazette to yourself and your exploits. Here also is a sealed request to any naval captain you encounter to leave your crew be – in short, not to press them. I have also enclosed papers of discharge for those in Pearce’s mess, but I abjure you not to open them or hand them over until the fellows you will take with you are on dry land.’
Burns was not sure how to react. He was being given a ship to sail and he had no idea how to do it. Then he brightened. The crew of the Lady Harrington did – Twyman had shown that already – all he would be obliged to do was have a cruise.
‘I have asked Mr Collins to allow you one of his senior master’s mates to get you home.’ Barclay stood up, and held out his hand. ‘I will of course accompany you to the ship, but I would like to shake you by the hand now, a sort of private farewell.’
Burns’ podgy mitt was sweaty, his grip fish-like, which made Barclay glad of his masterstroke. If Emily could be brought to show pity to a cove like Pearce, what would she do if young Burns got into trouble, which judging by his lack of both courage and ability was only a matter of time? And by sending him back to garner the credit for the capture of a British ship and the destruction of an enemy he was doing the best he could for a relation by marriage by way of advancing his career.
The numbers that came to see them over the side touched Twelve Mess; Barclay had Toby Burns and the ubiquitous file of marines sharing his transport, while Pearce and his fellows were allotted the jolly boat. Martin Dent came close to Pearce, grabbing his coat and pulling at it, looking at him in a strange way before running for the rigging. It was only when he moved that Pearce felt the bulk in his pocket, and an investigative hand clutched at his missing purse. How the boy had got it mattered not – it had been returned, and he was sure contained the same near fifty guineas as when he had come aboard.
Dysart waved his one good hand as the boats pulled away, shouting, ‘Scots wae hae,’ and much to Cornelius Gherson’s embarrassment Molly loudly called his name, and then blew him a kiss. Ben Walker did not show, which disappointed four in the boat, but Martin Dent was, by that time, in the very height of the tops, legs entwined round the crosstrees, both arms swinging a farewell.
On the poop, Emily Barclay, standing with Lutyens, had to stop herself from giving a parting wave to the pressed men, the same kind as she had given to her cousin. And she was proud, not for the fact that her views had prevailed, but because her husband, too long a bachelor, too long in the Navy, had come to see sense and to begin to act like the kind soul he truly was. At that moment, she was looking to the future, to marriage and life aboard ship, with great confidence.
‘Right, Mr Twyman, I am putting aboard Mr Burns in command of the prize, and master’s mate to sail her home.’
‘You can do as you wish, Captain Barclay, it will make no odds. This vessel is salvage and that is that.’
‘As I have said, a matter for the court.’ Behind him Pearce and his party were coming aboard. Twyman had seen them approach, but was surprised to see them bearing ditty bags, for he had heard from their lips that Brilliant was short-handed. ‘Here, I have gifted you five hands, not the best I grant you but good enough to haul on a rope. Plus a master’s mate to undertake navigation, six men in all. You will oblige me by selecting the same number from your crew to take their place aboard my ship.’
‘I’m damned if I will, sir. You’re not at liberty to press from a convoy ship.’
‘But you are no longer on convoy. You are setting sail for home waters.’
‘But…’
‘Marines,’ was all Barclay said then, not loud, but it brought down a line of muskets nevertheless. ‘As I say, Twyman, you choose. I do not wish to usurp the right to decide what men I shall take, but I will if I have to.’
The inference was plain; tally off some men, or you will be the first on in my boat.
Those left behind were still cursing Barclay’s perfidy when the two vessels parted company, HMS Brilliant setting all sail to the west and her convoy, the Lady Harrington, as much as she could safely carry, to the northwest, the master’s mate Barclay had sent aboard insisting that was necessary to avoid the deadly waters around the Channel Islands.
Standing by the shrouds after his breakfast, watching other members of the crew go aloft, Michael O’Hagan and Rufus Dommet included, Pearce was conscious of the trepidation that held him back, and that knowledge annoyed him. No one had challenged him and there was no authority ordering him to go against his own inclinations to keep his feet firmly rooted to the deck planking. Sailing the Lady Harrington was very different from sailing a frigate, not comfortable exactly, but leisurely in comparison to the loud and persistent demands to ‘double up’ that were such a feature of life aboard HMS Brilliant. Sails seemed to be set and taken in at a pace to suit the crew, not the demands of some naval captain’s vanity. He had to assume that in bad weather things would be different; self-preservation would demand swift action, but on this short voyage home the weather was as benign as the discipline.
Pearce knew he could climb to the mainmast cap, and he could recall the feeling of superiority, indeed almost of pleasure, such an ascent had given him. But could he go higher, to the actual tops, a place where boys like Martin Dent could get to with ease; and if he could, why would he want to? He supposed he would – because of the devil in him; that trait his father so gently deplored, the need his son seemed to have to be better than other men: to ride a horse faster, to pin an opponent swiftly on the point of an épée or slash at his head guard with a sabre; to be the first to attempt a seduction, moving to introduce himself while others, his peers in age and aspiration, held back. As these thoughts filled his mind, Pearce was already climbing.
At the lower mast top he acknowledged an amused shake of the head from Michael O’Hagan, before placing a foot on the much narrower shrouds that led up to the tops, noting that they were less springy, more taut than those below. They narrowed ever more as they passed the access point to the topmast, until at the cap they were no wider than his own shoulders, while at his feet only a few strands stretched crossways. The wind, gentle on deck, tugged at his clothing and chilled his body. Hauling himself on, he joined the fellow posted there as lookout in a space a third of the size of the platform below. The cap consisted of a mere three strakes of thick square timber, and at this height he was much more aware of the motion as the Lady Harrington dipped and rose on the ocean swell; aware, but not in any way alarmed.
As soon as he felt secure, both arms looped around the masthead, Pearce experienced a creeping feeling of exhilaration, with the wind strong on his face, the air clean and salt-free, knowing as he looked around that he could see for miles in every direction, while below the likes of Charlie Taverner and Gherson, who had flatly refused an invitation to join him, were mere specks on the deck. Burns was an even smaller dot, standing before a wheel that was held by the master’s mate from Brilliant, closely shadowed by Twyman, who refused to yield the deck to Barclay’s appointees. It occurred to Pearce that the little midshipman was another person who showed little inclination for climbing masts.
The shout of ‘Sail Ho’ right in his ear, nearly caused Pearce to lose his grip. He spun round to follow the outstretched arm of the lookout, which was pointing in a vaguely easterly direction, straining his eyes to see the object he had identified.
‘Where away?’ came the voice from the deck.
‘North-east, I reckon,’ the lookout shouted. As he did so something rose from the grey edge of the horizon, and Pearce saw the tip of a mast, maybe a sail, and most certainly a streaming triangular flag.
‘She’s showing a man-o’-war pennant.’
‘Friend or foe?’ Pearce asked the lookout.
The answer was grudging, for he was with a fellow who had seen his mates pressed in the Navy, to be replaced by a lot he considered useless buggers. ‘Won’t know that for an age yet, till she’s hull up and maybe then she might be flyin’ false colours.’
The commands from below had the yards moving and Pearce saw the prow of the Lady Harrington swing slightly westward. ‘We’ll keep as much water betwixt us and them till we’re sure,’ said the lookout.
If time at sea had little dimension at deck level, that sensation was even more apparent at the mainmast cap. To Pearce, little changed; the approaching vessel got bigger, but so slowly as to be almost imperceptible. Yet to the lookout features of the approaching ship were constantly being revealed. She was a line of battle ship, two-decked but too small for a seventy-four, and looked to be British. The flag at the main told him she was in a squadron commanded by a vice-admiral of the white. He gave the information tersely to Pearce that, if he had a brain in his head he would know the Navy had three squadrons, blue, red and white.
‘Sweet sailer too,’ the lookout added, ‘she’s coming up hand over fist and that on a bowline.’ Pearce declined to respond; he thought that meant sailing into the wind but was not certain enough to say so.
‘Pretty,’ the lookout exclaimed as the prow of the warship swung across to another tack, the yards switching also. ‘Sheeted home her yards as sweet as a nut, she did.’
In half an hour they knew for certain she was British; that she was a sixty-four gunner, and as soon as some of the crew on deck could make out her figurehead, a large white face over a blue cloak and a golden crown on the head, they could say for certain that she was HMS Agamemnon, and that the request to heave to was one that could safely be obeyed.
The captain who came aboard was slight of build, so much so that standing next to Midshipman Burns, speaking in what was a high, light voice, he nearly managed to make the boy look and sound like a real sailor. The pair paced the windward side of the deck with Burns talking the most, the little captain listening, head bent in deep concentration. Pearce was not alone in edging closer to eavesdrop, unsurprised that in the telling of his tale, which was naturally of the pursuit and destruction of the Mercedes, Burns was allotting to himself a role he had not played.
‘Would you listen to that little sod?’ Twyman hissed.
Pearce nodded. ‘I daresay it’s the same story he told Barclay.’
The pacing stopped abruptly, as the small captain, in a piping voice, exclaimed, ‘Some of the men from HMS Brilliant, men who took part in the action, are aboard?’
Burns looked slightly crestfallen, and Pearce had the feeling he regretted revealing the fact. ‘They are, sir, four in all.’
‘Then I would very much like to meet them, Mr Burns.’
A moment’s hesitation was followed by a look and a call, which sounded almost martial in its delivery. ‘Pearce, assemble those Brilliants whom I commanded at Lézardrieux.’ There was a very short pause, in which Pearce declined to move, instead glaring at the boy until he added, ‘If you please.’
Gathering Charlie, Rufus and Michael took no time at all, for they had all edged close to the quarterdeck. Gherson looked set to step forward too, but Pearce told him abruptly to get back, and in seconds found himself looking down into a pair of startlingly blue eyes, set in a good-looking but quite pale face, and on the receiving end of an engaging smile. The captain wore his officer’s hat across his head rather than front to back, which rendered clear his look of indulgent enquiry.
‘Captain Horatio Nelson, at your service. You are?’
The reply ‘John Pearce,’ was unavoidable, given that Burns had used that name, and thankfully it produced nothing but a nod. As this Nelson moved along, introducing himself to the other three with the same pleasant manner, Pearce looked at Burns, who wore on his face a look of deep concern. If Nelson asked any questions, Pearce and his friends were in a position to ditch him, to tell the truth about what he had done, four voices against one would entirely destroy the image he had created with this visitor. But crushing Burns would not do him or his friends any good at all, despite any satisfaction it might give. He heard Nelson ask Michael to describe his part in the operation, and cut across the Irishman to answer.
‘It was a joint affair, Captain Nelson, in which everyone played their part in what was a very confusing occasion. For any one man to single out and relate his own efforts would, of necessity, be partial, and quite possibly inaccurate. And I think it is worth reminding ourselves that nothing could have been achieved without the aid of the crew of the Lady Harrington, led by Mr Twyman, who is standing by the wheel.’
‘Well said, fellow,’ Nelson replied; looking at the speaker he did not see the glare aimed at Pearce by Michael O’Hagan. ‘I have been in the odd scrap myself, and have found it hard in the aftermath to remember clearly what has occurred.’
For a moment Pearce wondered if Nelson was as much of a liar as Midshipman Burns; he didn’t look as though he could punch a hole in a paper bag, never mind take part in a proper scrap.
‘Well, let it be enough to say that I congratulate you all. It is a fine thing you have done and I daresay when the news reaches England it will do much to cheer the folk at home. Mr Burns, time and tide do not wait and I have my orders for the Mediterranean. But let me say before I go back aboard Agamemnon that should you ever need a berth, and I have a ship, I would consider it an honour if you would apply to me for a place.’ Nelson spun slowly round, taking in the whole deck as he added, ‘and quite naturally, I would welcome any man here to join my crew. Good day to you all, and God speed.’
They watched, rocking on the swell, as Nelson’s barge made the short trip back to his ship. As soon as he got aboard, men began to swarm up the shrouds to set sail. It was a shock, and an emotional one as, on a command from the quarterdeck, where all the officers including the little captain stood with their hats raised, the entire crew of the sixty-four gun ship of the line gave the crew of the Lady Harrington three times three in cheers. In utter silence, with not a shout to be heard but the order to make sail, the men of the warship sheeted home their yards and HMS Agamemnon got under way.
‘Time we did the same,’ said Twyman.
Cornelius Gherson added bitterly, as he looked at the departing man-o’-war, ‘Drippy naval buggers.’
They had sighted land from the masthead hours before, and had put up the helm of the Lady Harrington to crawl along the long, low Dungeness shore, heading for the South Foreland and the Downs. Twyman had promised to put the five pressed men ashore before they made their landfall. In light airs there was nothing to do, so Pearce found himself on the quarterdeck in front of the wheel, in the place where Barclay would stand aboard HMS Brilliant. Pearce thought about the events of the past two weeks; it had been an experience, certainly, almost too much crowded into a short space of time to be credible. He had made friends and enemies. The first he would keep, the latter he would try to forget, for to recall them would require an ongoing hatred he knew to be more damaging to him than to those at whom it was aimed.
The view from this part of the deck was different – he had to acknowledge that fact. Men stood here looked forward, to where the ship was headed, watching the great bowsprit lift and fall on the swell, poetically he thought, as a measure of their hopes. But it was just wood beneath his feet – the same wooden planking that graced the other parts of the deck. What made the denizens of a warship’s deck different were their uniforms and rituals – that allied to centuries of tradition. He had learnt that a ship, small East Indiaman or man-o’-war, was a complex affair – that the ropes, blocks, tackles and rigging represented a world of knowledge that could take years to acquire. And then only if what had been learnt passed down from those who had sailed the seas before – and that was before anyone had decided to take these great engines of war or commerce anywhere.
Navigation was a whole other art, seamanship the same: the ability to spot what was going to happen in the way of weather from the run of the sea or the colour and composition of the sky. But much as he admired the competence of those who sailed these ships, who could not but wonder at what they put up with. If accommodation had been tight in the frigate it was more so on this Indiaman; the crew, including the Pelicans, was confined to a tiny forepeak barely big enough to hold them all, so that space could be saved for cargo. Midshipman Burns, now once more pacing the windward side of the quarterdeck, still pretending to be an officer and a gentleman, abrogated to himself half the great cabin, with Twyman using the other half. It was the same on a merchant ship as in the Navy – those with wealth and position acquired more, and the space to enjoy the luxury it provided. Those with little toiled as they were directed – though life was much easier on a trading vessel than a warship – before hauling themselves into cots in a stinking pit, where privacy was unknown and comfort wholly absent.
Idly looking at what ships were passing, going tip and down the Channel, Pearce rehearsed his plans for getting to London and Lutyens’ father without risk. The idea was that they would go ashore this very night as soon as it was dark, close enough to Dover – St Margaret’s Bay had been mentioned. They would then be able to walk to one of the coach stops between there and Canterbury, without risking the port itself for fear of bounty-hunting crimps. Charlie and Rufus had opted for rural Kent, well away from the metropolis while Pearce himself would go on to London with Michael for company. He would need new clothes, for the coat that he had worn when taken up was torn and useless. And a big hat, one that created shadow enough to hide his face.
‘Armed cutter signalling, Mr Burns,’ said the master’s mate whom Barclay had put aboard. ‘Signal is to heave to. They’ll be after hands.’
Pearce followed the pointed finger and observed a small ship, with one great mast dwarfing the hull, beating up the coast towards them.
‘Oblige him,’ Burns replied, in his squeaky voice. ‘Though I fear he is in for a grave disappointment.’ Then he made for the cabin, to fetch the papers Captain Barclay had given him.
All the pressed men had been told that it was common for ships to be apprehended once they were in soundings – the point where a lead line could touch the bottom of the sea. It was from incoming merchant vessels that the Navy took most of its crews. The news brought everyone on deck to stare at the approaching cutter, a tiny affair dwarfed by the ship she had ordered to halt, though with gunports that showed she had teeth. Expertly, the man who conned it brought the vessel under the Indiaman’s lee and backed the sails, edging on the rudder until the sides touched by the man ropes Burns had seen rigged, so that a blue-coated officer could clamber aboard. As he came on deck, he showed surprise at who walked the quarterdeck – not some flushed full-of-wealth India captain, but a slip of a naval mid with his hat off his head.
‘Lieutenant Benjamin Colbourne, at your service,’ the officer announced, returning the compliment with the hat.
‘The prize ship Lady Harrington,’ piped Burns. ‘Taken by HMS Brilliant, Captain Ralph Barclay commanding.’
‘Salvage,’ barked Twyman, as he had done every time the word prize was uttered.
That raised an eyebrow and a discussion followed in which Burns put Brilliant’s case and Twyman that of the Indiaman crew, neither with true clarity, producing on the face of the lieutenant a look of wry amusement.
‘You had best make up your mind, gentlemen,’ he said finally. ‘Your ship is in soundings and therefore I have the right to press some of your crew for service in the Navy. That is if you are salvage; a prize, of course, is different.’
Pearce looked him up and down. Colbourne was tall, well mannered, neatly dressed, but stooped.
‘My captain gave me these to cover this very moment,’ said Burns, handing over a letter.
Colbourne took it, broke the seal and read it. ‘You have aboard, this says, five seamen from your frigate. Captain Barclay intends them for the press tender, and another ship, but writes that any captain intercepting this vessel should feel free to take his men on board.’
‘You’re wrong,’ protested Gherson. ‘Those are our papers of discharge.’
‘We were illegally pressed,’ said Charlie Taverner, a remark parroted by Rufus Dommet.
‘I think,’ Michael piped up, making more sense of what had happened than the others, ‘that you will see we have been right royally stuffed.’
Pearce spoke up last; having listened to the exchange with a sinking heart, he was sure he knew what Barclay had done. ‘These men are right. We were illegally pressed from the Liberties of the Savoy on the banks of the Thames. Captain Barclay undertook to free us.’
‘Forgive me,’ said Colbourne, his voice almost sympathetic, ‘but by your garb you are clearly seamen. Those are Navy ducks you are wearing and I can clearly see that your hands are stained by tar.’
‘Our shore clothes are stored.’
‘Which is as it should be.’
‘Would I be allowed to read Captain Barclay’s letter?’ asked Pearce, holding out his hand.
That occasioned an even more marked lift of the eyebrows, for common seamen were rarely able to read. But the officer passed the letter over. Pearce read the words with a cold sensation in his gut; their names were listed, their rating as landsmen, and the words this lieutenant had just quoted. There was one last chance, and he turned to the confused midshipman.
‘Mr Burns, I feel after what has happened and with the glory you will gather from it, you may feel you owe us a favour. Captain Barclay asked me how you had fared, and for the sake of your being our comrade I declined to tell him the whole truth. Likewise with Captain Nelson. I now ask that you return both those favours. Please tell Lieutenant Colbourne that this is some kind of cruel joke.’
Burns looked at Pearce for what seemed like an age, his podgy face showing nothing. Then he turned his back on them all, and began to pace back and forth, quite the little admiral. A look from Pearce to Twyman produced no response – there was no mercy in those eyes, just the avarice of a man calculating an increase in his salvage money. Pearce was wondering whether to produce Lutyens’ letter. Would that persuade this lieutenant to desist, or would it – in telling him both who Pearce was and whom he represented – decide him to put ashore into the hands of a Justice of the Pearce as a man wanted by the law? He could not risk it.
Colbourne filled the awkward silence. ‘Fetch your dunnage, all of you, and get it aboard my ship.’ No one moved, until he added, quietly. ‘I have the law on my side and I will not hesitate to bring muskets aboard if I have to.’
The temptation to tell the lieutenant to go to hell was strong, as potent as the notion of chucking him bodily off the ship. Pearce was aware that his companions were looking at him, in expectation of some idea of what to do, and once more he felt a slight irritation at being called upon to decide – why could they not think and act for themselves? The thoughts going through his mind were a jumble of possibilities, risks, and consequences, overlaid by the feeling that the Fates were again playing a cruel trick on him – the same trick as they had been playing for the past two weeks. He thought about the near arrest that led him to the Pelican and impressment; the thwarted possibility of escape; Barclay’s surprise offer of freedom and now this.
They could not stand against authority here any more than they had been able to aboard HMS Brilliant. The law was on the side of the Navy and they were five against that, four because Pearce quickly discounted Gherson. No one on this deck would make a move to help them, one or two from greed, the majority for fear that they too might end up as pressed men. He could not even be sure that anyone but Michael O’Hagan would back him in taking action. But the thought Pearce was left with utterly depressed him; that having fallen foul of a cruel fate and overcome it, he was now being thrust into a situation where he would have to do the whole thing again.
‘John-boy?’ said O’Hagan.
Pearce turned around and spoke softly so that his reply was for the Irishman’s ears only. ‘We comply, Michael, because we must. But I swear on your God, Barclay will regret this act to his dying day. I shall make sure of that.’
Then he added, in a louder voice, one that stopped the midshipman in his tracks. ‘Mr Burns, we will meet again one day, when I hope you are old enough to allow me to extract the price you must pay for what is an act of pure treachery.’
‘Amen,’ hissed Michael.
Pearce looked past the boy’s pale white face and fear-filled eyes to the low northern shore, to the sandy beach rising in the distance and the wooded hills of the Weald of Kent – beyond that the road to London and the solution he sought. So near, yet so far!