‘It’s not desertion, Michael. I am pulling the old trick of taking my followers with me when changing ships on the excuse I was temporarily in command. You will be entered in the muster book of Tarvit and I will pen a note to Glaister. I’ll wager we’ll find Tarvit to be short-handed, there’s no way Jervis is going to properly crew her going home, and if that is the case, moving you can be justified afterwards.’
The pinnace was scudding along, the weight of Michael O’Hagan on the larboard side welcome in keeping the boat stiff on what was a fine breeze. Pearce was amazed that no one, Parker included, had enquired how he was going to get from Victory to where he needed to be. He had not hung about to give them the chance, cribbing some stores, water and biscuit then setting off. Likewise, Parker had said Tarvit was ready to sail, which should mean she should be fully provisioned and that too was suitable for he could weigh swiftly. If he hung about, Michael, Charlie and Rufus might have to be returned to Flirt.
‘Happen a different name in that muster book, John,’ Charlie suggested. ‘Done it afore an’ it keeps the beaks at bay.’
‘I’ll think on it.’
‘Miss old Flirt,’ Rufus said. ‘Good bunch of shipmates, they was, though abaft the mast weren’t too settled.’
‘Blame me,’ Pearce joked.
‘We did,’ was a chorus, with Rufus adding, ‘Drove poor Digby mad.’
‘Command of you lot would do that without any aid from me.’
‘Is a transport run like a man-o’-war?’
‘Charlie, I couldn’t tell you.’
‘Sure that’s to make us feel better,’ O’Hagan opined.
‘Michael, I hate to disabuse you, but I don’t know everything.’
‘Holy Mary, the truth at last.’
The pinnace was not spacious, especially with Pearce’s sea chest and the dunnage of the others taking up space, and neither was their diet good or the journey comfortable. Yet to Pearce it was a joy to be in the company of his friends with no authority around to enforce hierarchy, with plenty of ribbing – quite like old times, really. They spent one night at sea and raised Leghorn around two bells into the forenoon watch, unloading their possessions in a harbour full of merchant vessels and not short of men-o’-war, one being HMS Victory in the company of several seventy-fours, to then abandon the pinnace at the quayside.
Tempted to go straight to the pensione d’Agastino and visit Emily, he knew that would have to come last; there was too much to do if he wanted to weigh quickly. He needed to tell her he was going home and that he would wait for her there. She could contact him through Alexander Davidson, his prize agent.
The first task was to visit the harbour master’s office, there to find out at which mooring his ship lay in what was a crowded anchorage. That done, and it took time, they hired a local wherry, not without difficulty and language misunderstandings, to get them to Tarvit, on the way passing those warships seen on arrival, as well as the many boats plying to and from the shore, many bearing King’s officers and coming by in close proximity.
Their presence worried him, not for himself but for his companions, doing all they could to keep their faces hidden as they passed by the fighting vessels. Time in the navy made them, as far as dress was concerned, look like what they were and all they had as protection was his blue coat until eventually they found their destination.
Lieutenant John Pearce came aboard Tarvit to no welcome at all, no whistles or stamping marines, only curious faces and what seemed a degree of indifference. A chartered transport had few of the offices of a warship; no master-at-arms, purser or other Navy Board appointees. The necessary positions were filled with civilians granted temporary certificates by the Admiralty to protect them from such things as press gangs and over-officious functionaries, the most important to Pearce was a big-shouldered bear of a fellow called Michael Hawker, who was acting as first mate. He would do much of the sailing and crew management.
Those already aboard were employed by the private owners, were paid by them, so still owed them allegiance. They would acknowledge a blue coat, the navy insisting in a chartered vessel carrying Admiralty possessions or people that one should be in titular command, but they would not bow to him in any respect other than that which they would show to the captain of a merchant vessel.
He checked his cabin, spacious and reasonably well furnished with sleeping quarters, a dining room as well as a separate bureau, Michael installing himself in the adjacent servant’s quarters to find a larder bare of so much as a lump of mouldy cheese. By the time he had sorted out his dunnage and cleaned to his high standard, he found Pearce had gone on a tour of inspection, so he went to find the ship’s cook. Charlie and Rufus, with the habit of previous practice, had found themselves berths with the rest of the crew, who, if they wondered at their status, did not yet care enough to enquire.
This inspection Pearce carried out in the company of Hawker and Tobias Fuller, the clerk-cum-representative of the shipping company, who sailed with the vessel and would combine with him to keep the necessary records: what provender went to men for whom the navy was responsible, what went to the crew and was charged against the vessel’s owners. The list of ship’s stores as well as the quantity of wood and water had to be matched to the goods themselves before Pearce could be satisfied he was not being dunned, and he signed the various ledgers before it was time to inspect the ‘cargo’.
Tarvit had been rigged out as a hospital ship, the patients already loaded. Thus she carried a surgeon who would be responsible for the welfare of the sick and wounded, some suffering from serious injuries, more from bodily afflictions too numerous to count. The surgeon also had the necessary loblolly boys to provide the care the patients needed. Looking at some of the cases, he wondered if they would indeed see home: there would be burials at sea, for sure, not a cheering thought.
The rating patients were accommodated in hammocks on the open lower deck, but there was a screened-off portion with brand-new bulkheads for those of rank sufficient to justify a degree of isolation and/or privacy; in essence, two lieutenants to whom he declined to make himself known. In the forepeak were accommodated those seen as having a weakness of the mind and there, careful not to speak or be recognised, he found Henry Digby strapped to a swinging cot, talking to himself ten to the dozen; in addition, two other souls staring at the deck beams in mute silence.
‘You say you know him?’ asked the surgeon, who, with a strong West Country accent had been introduced as Stephen Byford.
‘Very well; too well,’ Pearce replied, going on to provide a filleted explanation. ‘Is there a chance he may recover his wits?’
Byford shook his head, though he was quick to point out that little was known about afflictions of the character, never mind the causes. ‘Did not King George himself suffer from a cranial malady, yet we are told he is now once more of sound mind?’
Tempted to say that was not an opinion many naval officers would agree with, Pearce held his tongue. He also declined to share his own doubts about royal sanity. To do so would impress: how many people could say they had met King George? He could not decide if silence was driven by a desire not to show away or a feeling that denigrating the sovereign might not go down too well, given the enthusiasm in Byford’s voice when he mentioned the King.
Michael found him outside the Bedlam berth – that name was given it by Byford – to ask for money to stock the bare larder. He needed to go ashore in the company of the ship’s cook and lay in some private stores, and enumerated a list: wine, cheeses, smoked hams. When he got to eggs his friend lost patience.
‘Enough, Michael, go and purchase what you need, enough to get us to Gibraltar.’
The key to the sea chest was handed over and the Irishman told to help himself to money. There was no shortage of funds: Pearce had the coinage paid to him in Brindisi from the action in the Gulf of Ambracia, very little of which he had been able to spend.
‘You’re a trusting soul, indeed, Lieutenant Pearce,’ Byford exclaimed, when Michael had departed. ‘I’m not sure I would be handing over such access to a servant of mine.’
‘That is because you don’t know him as I do.’
An inspection in the company of Hawker and the carpenter showed she was sound of hull, though some of the running rigging was in a poor state. Wear and tear to wood, canvas and cordage had to be recorded, the cost passed to the Navy Board for reimbursement and there was enough evidence of that to be just accepted. This, once he and Hawker had compiled a list, had him going ashore with the clerk, Fuller, first to beard Captain Urquhart and see if he could acquire some of his precious and hoarded stores, next to visit Emily at the pensione d’Agastino.
‘I have ships of war in want of even a nail,’ Urquhart barked. ‘What makes you think I will accede to your request? This commissariat is here to provide for the King’s Navy. If you want anything for a chartered ship, you go to a ship’s chandler.’
‘It would save paperwork, Captain Urquhart. These are bills which fall to the navy to pay. It would be easier if the navy just provided, would it not?’
‘For you, perhaps, Pearce, not for me. I have no mind to have the Admiralty clerks damning my accounts.’
‘It would help to get rid of me,’ Pearce replied gaily, sure he was flogging a dead horse. ‘Fit me out and I will be on my way home, never to darken your door again.’
The notion obviously appealed, because on that unsmiling visage the lips moved a fraction, but nothing was forthcoming so off they went in search of another way to be supplied. To purchase from a ship’s chandler, the money first had to be acquired from the company’s agent and that could only be done by Fuller. Pearce, impatient and getting more so, found himself visiting the bureau of none other than Mr Pollock, to whom he had been introduced at the ball and this allowed some gentle enquiries about Emily.
‘A woman of grace and beauty, sir,’ Pollock responded, to then assume that air of conspiracy that passes for safe exchange between men discussing any subject deemed lubricious, dropping his voice to do so. ‘I think you would not be surprised if I said that were I not a wedded husband, Mrs Barclay is a woman who would not want for my lack of attention.’
‘And the child?’ Pearce asked, annoyed.
‘A small price to pay for such a reward,’ Pollock stated, before again dropping his voice as if imparting a confidence. ‘Why, sir, you know her, I recall, and I doubt any man who has clapped eyes on the lady would wonder at her in a situation of delicate congress.’
‘I think we came to access some funds,’ Pearce replied, his irritation showing. ‘Mr Fuller, would you please deal with this and expeditiously? I will wait outside.’
‘Prickly lot, these tars,’ Pollock said to Fuller, when Pearce had vacated the room.
Buying cordage on Pollock’s credit was the simple part; getting it delivered to the ship was not, the chandler insisting it would have to be fetched from his warehouse and that could not be done until morning. Pleas from Pearce that he was desperate fell on deaf Italian ears, as well as a raft of gestures and excuses, many of which did not add much to elucidation. He was tempted to take out his sword, only to reckon it would cause a rumpus and that he did not want. He wished to slip his mooring quietly, not with a noise.
‘Mr Fuller, I bid you go back aboard. I have one more chore to perform of a private nature.’
The look that got from the man, small, ginger-haired, with rimmed spectacles and bad skin, spoke volumes: he assumed the private nature to be carnal, which had Pearce wishing the fellow was correct, albeit not in visiting a bordello. It was dark by the time he got to the pensione and could announce himself to the owner, asking for Mrs Barclay.
‘Partito questo pomeriggio.’ That answer was accompanied by a wide gesture, with Pearce struggling to make sense of what he was being told, and that took several additional enquiries and much gesticulation to solve.
‘Gone where?’ led to more confusion.
That Pearce understood, being close to French, but it did not get him very far, because the owner, having said she was going aboard a ship, had no idea which one she was travelling on. Out in the harbour there were a dozen flying Union flags. Whichever vessel, it was must be weighing in short order: Emily, with a newborn child, surely would not go aboard prematurely. The only people who would possess that information were in the harbour master’s office. They required to be paid by ships anchoring in Livorno up to the time of departure. It would have been a solution except when he got there, he found it closed.
To return to Tarvit or stay ashore? The latter seemed sensible, even if he had to admit what he was after might have already weighed while he was trying to sort out stores for the vessel he now commanded. Recollection of coming ashore provided no enlightenment; he had not been paying attention to such things as ships plucking their anchor and this put him in a quandary. The chandler was supposed to be delivering his cordage and canvas first thing in the morning, but you did not have to be in Italy long to realise that time was, to the locals, a mutable concept. ‘First thing’ could mean sometime before dark unless the fellow was chivvied early.
The conclusion took him back to the pensione d’Agastino and a set of rooms for the night, oddly the very same chambers so recently occupied by Emily, though having been cleaned they retained scant evidence of her presence. A heightened imagination made it seem to him as if there was a miasma of her being there, her scent and that of a baby and he went to sleep feeling as though she was there, sharing the bed, the baby in a basket beside them, to sleep as well as his infant son. He woke in the same manner as Adam John, early and needing food.
Bill satisfied and having been fed, he was outside the harbour master’s office, which serving sailors opened early, to find himself in a queue for attention as newly arrived captains haggled for a mooring fee, and others – and these he took note of regardless of nationality – settled accounts prior to departure.
His request being an unusual one, it took time to explain, longer to get a response. Why did he want to know? Was there some form of criminality in his enquiry? Finally, he found that the good ship Nevern, out of London, had plucked its anchor at mid afternoon the day before, taking advantage of an advantageous wind.
He also got the information that no other British vessels were due to depart for days and none, as far as they knew, were destined for home. If it was chastening, at least he knew which vessel she was likely to be on and Tarvit might overhaul her, especially if he could get away soon. Luckily, he was not required to settle an account; that was a bill that went to Urquhart’s Navy Board.
It took half the morning to get the ship’s chandler to fulfil his obligation and no fewer than a dozen hints he might resort to violence. Finally, the purchases were on the quayside, where the Italian purveyor began to haggle for a boat of a hull size sufficient to carry them. While the sod was engaged in bargaining, the usual cacophony of guns announced the arrival of another King’s ship. Since he had seen much of her in recent actions, he knew it to be HMS Inconstant.
There had been, and still were, several cutters landing people, officers included. Gunfire had them stop, stare and congregate and it was not long before one of their number, satisfied with naming the newcomer, realised the reprobate John Pearce was along the same quay and pointed him out. Pearce had been in the Mediterranean a long time, had visited many ships and been visible from the quarterdeck of too many others, so his identity was no mystery and nor was the attitude of those blue coats now staring at him in an unfriendly way.
That did have him draw his sword – he had to get a move on – to put an end to the endless price negotiation, wringing of hands, emotional pleas and slapping of Italian foreheads. He assumed it would do nothing for his reputation: to be seen waving his sword at a civilian, who cowered in a manner that would not have disgraced a thespian. The scene would be recounted throughout the fleet to further diminish what little standing he enjoyed.
It was a fiery and impatient John Pearce who got the supplies loaded and if he upset Hawker by his manner, his order to weigh immediately was so brusque he was required to apologise, using the excuse of an old acquaintance on Nevern who he wagered he would beat home. This did little to temper the looks he was getting from the crew, if you excepted Charlie and Rufus, who were full of smiles.
In supervising the weighing of the ship, he was joined on deck by O’Hagan, who got a more honest explanation.
‘Holy Mary, all you need to do is beat her to Gib, John-boy.’
‘I must try to catch her before she gets home, Michael. Once there and back amongst her own, I’ll never persuade her to abandon her silly notions.’
‘Sure, you’ll struggle even then, if I know the lady.’
The anchor was plucked and Hawker gave orders to set more sail, a task carried out with none of the haste of the King’s Navy. Pearce was obliged to raise his hat to the quarterdeck of Victory, which did not elicit a like response, no more than a slow hand to a scraper. He realised that apart from appearances he was superfluous, though he felt he should stay on deck till Tarvit cleared the harbour entrance.
‘We have coffee, I take it, Michael?’
‘Enough to get us to the Caribbean.’
‘Then get the water boiling, my friend.’ Pearce lifted his head to air redolent of fresh seawater; the stink of the port, of human waste and rotting food, was fading. ‘And let us take pleasure in our freedom.’
‘Minutes it will be, John-boy. Do you wish to take it on deck, your honour?’
The salutation got a grin. ‘In my cabin, Michael, please. Mr Hawker, may I leave you the deck?’
‘Aye, she will sail easy on this wind.’
‘Call me if you require my presence.’
The look that got implied pigs might fly, so Pearce made his way to his cabin, to open the door and find a smiling Emily sitting in a captain’s chair, in her lap their swaddled child, behind her, a grinning Michael O’Hagan. Pearce’s jaw dropped; his Pelicans had known all along, hence the smiles on deck, which left him speechless.
‘John, Admiral Jervis offered me free passage home, as the widow of a deserving officer. He did, however, warn me to have a care of you, for you are, he says, a scoundrel.’
‘I will revise my opinion of the man.’
‘I’ll be after making that coffee, John-boy,’ O’Hagan said, going straight off to his pantry and leaving them alone.
Emily stood as he moved to kiss her, only to be commanded to take from her his son. Cradled in his arms, he bent to kiss the child, noting the perfect features in miniature and feeling for the first time in many a day that the future was one of hope and happiness. There was a look in Emily’s eye as she added, ‘I hope you will not object that I chose to occupy a part of your cabin, Mr Pearce?’
‘Damned effrontery,’ he replied as he bent to kiss her cheek.