The arrival of Sir John Jervis, brought out to the Mediterranean in the frigate HMS Lively, sparked immediate change. Sir William Hotham had been a gentlemanly sort of fellow, who saw a certain degree of languor as befitting the role of a leader of men. Jervis was the polar opposite. Indeed, if anyone had told him he lacked the finer qualities required of a gentleman, he would have taken that as praise; his language was as salty as his demeanour, which came from serving near a decade as a youngster rated as an able seaman.
His first command was that loitering in Leghorn was forbidden; Hotham had never minded a bit of laggardly behaviour, in which his officers, as well as those men trusted not to desert, had enjoyed a couple of extra days in port, able to sample the fleshpots and brothels if they were so inclined. For the more refined, they would partake of the opera and theatrical entertainments laid on by the locals.
Jervis was a strict disciplinarian and would have none of it. If you were not at sea or under his personal gaze and ready to depart at the bang of a signal gun, you were failing in your duty and deserved to be beached. His attitude was no less severe with the lower deck and it was made plain to his captains that the best way to maintain good order was with frequent recourse to flogging.
Nelson had sailed to San Fiorenzo Bay on notice of his arrival to have what he told everyone was a very testy interview with the C-in-C. He was soon back on his old beat but bad weather had brought all his vessels into Vado Bay. Being the man he was, despite it being a far from perfect place in which to shelter, the commodore had invited all the commanders and their premiers to dinner, a request that Pearce knew sat heavily on the mind of Henry Digby.
Unbeknown to him, Digby had sent back a note to say he felt it unwise to leave HMS Flirt with only a midshipman in command and one yet to recover from a wound at that. The curt reply, also unmentioned, pointed out the brig was at anchor and hardly required a first lieutenant to look to its needs; so both men found themselves sharing a boat, wrapped in heavy cloaks to ward off both the cold and the sea spray, sitting in close proximity and total silence, as it was rowed towards HMS Agamemnon.
Well aware of hierarchy and despite the disturbed sea, Digby stood off until all the post captains had gone through the entry port to be greeted with due ceremony. Only when the last, Taberly from HMS Brilliant, had hooked onto the gangway did he order the crew of the cutter to haul away, to then lean over and whisper in Pearce’s ear.
‘I would be most grateful, Mr Pearce, if you behaved with the modesty due to your rank and that you say or do nothing to embarrass the ship.’
‘A task I think I can safely leave to you, sir,’ was the equally quiet reply.
‘Damn me, I am minded to get rid of you.’
‘Then today presents an excellent opportunity. I am sure Commodore Nelson will oblige you, but not, I suspect, without asking some quite searching questions as to your reasons.’
The name of the ship identified the man in command and Tilley, Digby’s coxswain, yelled it out in a voice loud enough to be heard on the mainmast cap, this as the cutter swung round to touch softly on the gangway base. Pearce was out first, convention having it that the superior officer should be the last to board, making his way to the entry port and the gloom of the interior, to watch as Digby was afforded all the respect due to a full captain: stamping marines and lifted hats from Agamemnon’s officers. That complete, he was taken to the great cabin.
‘Welcome, John.’
‘Dick, it is good to see you.’
There were not many years difference between John Pearce and Richard Farmiloe, a couple at most, but on first acquaintance that had provided a noticeable gap. Not now, they looked what they were: contemporaries of a similar age.
‘The wardroom is hosting the lesser beings, John, while Nelson sees to the captains.’
‘Lead on.’
Never spacious for the men it was required to hold, the wardroom was now crowded and it was telling, the different reactions to the entry of John Pearce, who was left alone as Farmiloe collared a steward and two goblets of wine. Welcoming smiles came from the ship’s own officers, men who had come to know him well and whose opinion had been mediated by Richard Farmiloe. This was set against a general stiffening and reserve from the other guests. The coldest glare came from Glaister, his counterpart in HMS Brilliant, a ship on which Pearce could class many men as kindred spirits. This fellow Scotsman was not one of them.
‘Mr Glaister,’ Pearce cried, taking savage delight in the way the skeleton-like face reacted as he moved towards him. The already unnaturally tight skin of his face contracted even more, as the new arrival, coming close, asked, ‘And how are you enjoying serving under Captain Taberly? A pleasure, I’m sure.’
Glaister knew he was being guyed and the way he reacted was quicksilver in its effect. ‘So sorry to hear about Captain Barclay, Mr Pearce. My sympathy, of course, goes to his wife but, I am sure, you are equally as mortified as the good lady to lose such a dear colleague.’
‘A sentiment that has rippled through the entire fleet,’ Pearce responded, with false empathy. ‘But I wonder if, as naval officers, we should not be more concerned with the loss of HMS Semele.’
‘A true naval officer might be.’
This was said in a voice loud enough to carry and turn heads. It had Dick Farmiloe hurrying over with those two goblets of wine, to quietly admonish both men.
‘Gentlemen, stick to what you have in common please, not to what you see as dispute.’
‘I will not be provoked,’ Glaister insisted.
‘Then do not glare, sir, for on such a countenance it is ghoulish.’
‘Come with me, John.’ The pressure needed to get him away was slight, given he was a willing accomplice, with Farmiloe whispering, ‘You have to have some sympathy for him, John, he does feel he has been unfairly passed over.’
‘That is bad enough, I agree, but to have Taberly as his captain must be close to hellish. If he had shown the slightest willingness to accommodate my presence I would have commiserated with him.’
‘Would you be angry with me if I said Glaister was not alone? There are too many here who do not know you as well as us Agamemnons.’
‘I promise not to ruffle any more feathers, Dick.’
He was as good as his word, confining his conversations to those who served aboard the ship, most notably and safely with John Roxburgh, the surgeon, the subject being the slow nature of the healing of Conway’s wound.
‘If his vital spirit holds he will be cured, Mr Pearce, take my word.’
‘And how is the commodore’s health?’
‘He is afflicted as ever, with colds and aches, none of which will diminish until he sees a tricolour he can attack.’
‘And that brings about alleviation?’
‘It is immediate, Mr Pearce, as if it was divinely inspired.’
Not wishing to question the assertion, it having been made with much conviction, that such a celestial intervention was possible, Roxburgh and he fell to talking about their homeland, a place that produced an inordinate amount of folk who pursued the profession of medicine.
‘Your father would have pointed to education, for which we can only thank the Kirk.’
Much as he queried divinity – his father Adam had derided such a thing in its entirety as superstition – neither of the Pearces could deny that the Elders of the Kirk of Scotland had indeed created a comprehensive system of schooling for their flock. It was the means by which such men as Roxburgh could rise from humble beginnings to pursue their chosen path.
The normally bigoted divines had insisted that every parish must have a school, and every pastor be qualified to teach Latin, Greek and mathematics. The result was a large number of educated Scots as well as a great deal of resentment from Englishmen who saw them occupy too many positions of merit, and more importantly, those of profit. To be termed a ‘Sawney Jock’ was not one of approbation.
Roxburgh had studied at the Surgeons’ Hall in Edinburgh, where the tenets of his craft had moved on many years previously from the lowly pursuit still extant further south, where a sawbones was little better than a barber. And he had mixed with those attending the university, peopled with a strange mixture of students, from radical thinkers to obscurantist divines. One of the former had been Pearce’s father.
‘I did hear the Ranter speak more than once,’ Roxburgh said, before qualifying it with an apology. ‘I hope you take no offence at the soubriquet?’
‘On the contrary, sir, my father took a perverse pride in being so called.’
‘He had a silver tongue, right enough.’
Which got him nowhere in the end, Pearce thought but did not say. All Adam Pearce achieved was to be hounded by the government and finally, having annoyed them to the point of reaction, to be faced with a writ for seditious libel, a false allegation for sure but one that could end on the gallows. The irony that it was another polity that silenced him was not one he was prepared to ever allude to.
‘He’s gone now, Mr Roxburgh.’
‘Leaving you to tend the radical flame?’
Pearce smiled and jerked his head towards the coast. ‘I think I will leave that to the French.’
‘Heathens to a man, God damn them.’
About to say that condemnation of an entire nation was to stretch the truth, Pearce was cut off by a loud voice calling from the wardroom doorway. ‘Gentlemen, the commodore requests that you take your place at dinner.’
They trooped up the gangway, visitors as well as the ships’ lieutenants, and made for the great cabin. On entry, each guest was received by Nelson, who had a slight pink glow already from that which he had imbibed. Seated, as the first course of soup was being dispensed, Pearce remarked to a neighbour, an Agamemnon, on the absence of Frank Lepeé, not with any great wish that the drunkard servant should be present.
‘Gone, sir. The commodore finally got shot of him, which should have happened years ago. Not that his replacement is too much of an improvement; a Norfolk dolt called Tom Allen.’
‘He’s a tartar, Collingwood, and that is to the good. There will be no rest with Jervis at the helm I can assure you, no sitting in San Fiorenzo Bay. Admiral Jervis is a close blockader by nature. He intends to keep his fleet cruising off Toulon and if the French do come out, to destroy them utterly.’
Even more flushed now, Nelson had banged his goblet on the polished mahogany of the table, while speaking loudly and emphatically, thus attracting every eye and every ear to his outburst. Pearce reckoned the arrival of Jervis would be good news to most of the officers present, frigate captains at best, while it might be less welcome to the commanders of the line-of-battle ships, happy to be at anchor in San Fiorenzo Bay. The captains there were split between those who had cleaved to Lord Hood and those who had supported Hotham, both sets now adrift as client officers.
The surprise was that Jervis had come out in a frigate and not a capital ship. Indeed, he should have been leading at least a dozen seventy-fours to replace those worn out by service, captained by men who owed any hope of advancement to him. Nelson supplied the answer: he had intended to come out in HMS Boyne, his flagship in the West Indies, but she had caught fire and blown up in Portsmouth harbour, taking down with her nearly all the admiral’s possessions.
It had never ceased to amaze John Pearce the speed with which information spread throughout a dispersed fleet, the carriers being the men who hardly saw a day when some of their time was not spent on a ship’s boat, carrying letters, moving officers as well as a dozen other purposes. The new dispensation in terms of discipline had been no exception. Everyone knew Jervis to be a flogger by reputation, anyway; that he would brook no indolence was only to be expected. Had someone alluded to the thought Pearce had just harboured regarding reinforcements? It was possible, as Nelson, flushed with more than wine, entered a strong opinion.
‘The government does not understand the needs of the Mediterranean, sir, which is what comes of having a civilian as First Lord, something on which Sir John and I are in full concord. Chatham may have been a laggard in office but at least he was a soldier, albeit one slow to rise from his bed of a morning.’
Heads dipped at these remarks. Nelson had managed in one sentence to insult two very important people: the Earl of Chatham, William Pitt’s elder brother, as well as Earl Spencer, who had been shifted into the position of First Lord when the Portland Whigs joined Pitt’s government. It was drink that loosened his tongue, of course, and, even if he was held in high regard, there would be folk at this table who would report back in their letters home what had been said.
‘Hear him!’ Pearce cried, he too thumping the table with the flat of his hand, a purely mischievous act designed to increase the discomfort of those who worried at Nelson’s outburst. Digby, sat next to the ship’s parson, looked daggers at him, which had the target suppress the childish desire to stick out his tongue.
Dick Farmiloe was shaking his head, albeit with a quiet smile, indicating he knew what Pearce was about. Judging by the reaction of both Taberly and Glaister they were in complete agreement for once, which would be that he was a menace and that revived a previous reflection.
It was a sadness these two had command of HMS Brilliant, which barred him from going aboard to reacquaint himself with some of the men with whom he had first set sail from Sheerness. Oddly, he numbered as companions people who had helped Ralph Barclay to press him into the navy. But there was one other person he would have dearly liked to have come face-to-face with and that was the slug, Toby Burns, who, for reasons unknown, was not present.
‘However,’ Nelson added empathically, no doubt having sensed the mood, dragging Pearce away from his less than pleasant thoughts regarding Burns, ‘we must acknowledge that such politicos have concerns of which we are unaware.’
The reaction to that was overplayed, with excessive noisy agreement; these men did not want to be associated with what had been said previously. Thankfully, the ‘Roast Beef of Old England’ was played, the platter brought in and if the beast that provided the huge joint was Ligurian, it had been well hung and properly cooked. Added to which, the decanters were doing the rounds to render jolly even the most miserable soul.
Not Digby. While most were flushed and red in the face from proximity to the stoves and too much Tuscan wine, he was in deep conversation with the black-clothed divine who served as chaplain aboard Agamemnon, known to the fleet as ‘Eggs and Bacon’. It seemed what the man was hearing was making him uncomfortable. In tightly packed seating, he had edged his body as far away as possible from Digby, while his face, even if he was nodding, carried a hint of disquiet.
After ample cheese and copious amounts of port wine, Pearce sought his boat cloak and the deck for a blast of fresh air, away too from the fug of numerous pipes. He was soon joined in his pacing by Dick Farmiloe, the talk naturally turning to shared memories, not least for both, their service under Barclay.
‘I am curious, John, how far would you have taken your case against him?’
‘All the way to the Old Bailey,’ Pearce replied. ‘It would not have troubled me to see him hang.’
This was said even though he was unsure if it was true. As in everything with her husband, Emily caused complications. His actions had many times been as much to protect her as to bring down her husband, and even if he wanted vengeance, he was not sure an execution was included.
‘It would have required you to testify; you were there.’
‘That sounds very much like a question, John.’ Pearce shrugged. ‘To answer it, all I can say is that I would not have lied under oath.’
It had always had an interesting slant, talking to Farmiloe about that night in the Pelican Tavern, for he had been in Barclay’s press gang, not, being a midshipman, a very important part, but an accomplice nonetheless.
‘Troubled, John? How could I be? I had never heard of the Liberties of the Savoy and had no idea where we were pressing was illegal. It was a duty I had never previously undertaken and I say to you now, I hope never to have to do so again.’
‘I have a mind to stay in the navy, Dick. What do you say to that?’
Such an abrupt change of subject took time to elicit a response. ‘Given what you have always led me to believe, I would say I’m surprised.’
‘Is that avoiding the real question?’
‘Which is?’
Pearce grinned and slapped him on the back; he was in the company of one of the few fellows with whom he could be reasonably open. ‘You know very well. My prospects should I choose to do so?’ The sucking in of breath was not reassuring. ‘Be honest, Dick.’
‘Truly, you will struggle to get round the stigma of your promotion to lieutenant. You experienced today the way it marks you.’
‘I have another reputation to counter that, though modesty forbids me from listing it.’
The laugh that got was hollow. ‘John, you are brave and you have proved it more than once. How do I tell you that the resentment you already engender is rendered doubly damning because of your perceived good fortune? There is hardly a man in the fleet who does not think they too could shine as you have, if given the chances you have been afforded. Such a feeling does not provoke admiration, it causes jealousy.’
That induced a period of silence and reflection, until Farmiloe posed the obvious question as to why he had suffered a change of heart. Pearce was not going to be open about that, even with him. How could he allude to impending fatherhood without invoking the name of the mother? Come to think of it, did Dick Farmiloe know the name anyway? He could not enquire.
‘I accept I have been lucky, Dick, but I must add that it has occurred in ways I have never sought, but in situations forced upon me by circumstances and more often by others. Yet as I stand here now and think of what else I can do with my life, the vista is a far from encouraging one.’
‘You are not a dunce, John.’
‘A sentiment you may find disputed in certain areas.’
The smile accompanying that was wiped away by Tilley, come to tell him that Digby was in the cutter and wondering where he was.