An Ill Wind (6 page)

Charlie had hated him for his easy spending, but more for Rosie, on whom he had designs, thinking that he being a handsome cove, and he was that, was more appealing than the Irishman’s copper and silver. Rosie would have none of it: Michael O’Hagan paid for her favours and if Charlie wanted to share them, to which she was not averse, then he must shell out for them likewise.

‘I dreamt about us being pressed again last night,’ said Rufus, whose only crime was to have run from a bonded apprenticeship in the leather trade. ‘Woke up a’trembling.’

‘It would be Irish snores that would wake you, Rufus,’ Charlie whispered, ‘and they are loud enough to shiver the timbers.’

Michael grinned at that: he was proud of his snoring, which was loud enough to drown out all the others doing likewise, each, with one watch on deck, in their twenty-eight inches of hammock space.

‘I don’t recall that night, as you know,’ he said.

‘You were so drunk you tried to belt Pearce when he told you to run,’ Charlie cackled, but that did not last, given it was not an occasion to remember fondly. ‘We should have spotted them tars eyeing the place.’

‘And young Martin.’

The boy they were speaking of, Martin Dent, a growing lad now and a skilful topman on HMS
Brilliant
, had been a drummer boy then, in a red coat that stood out a mile even in that smoky, crowded place.

‘We was too busy dunning Pearce for ale,’ said Rufus.

‘I don’t recall you getting him to shell out for drink,’ Charlie snapped, adding a finger gesture to one of the captain’s choir. ‘That were me, mate.’

‘You got a silver tongue, Charlie, an’ no error.’

‘But now’t but air in his breeches,’ Michael scoffed.

‘When I’m dreaming,’ Rufus insisted, ‘I sees them tars burstin’ in with clubs the size of spars, with us runnin’ all ways to no purpose.’

Not only had Barclay’s men rushed the tavern, they were outside the doors front and back, waiting to catch hold of anyone trying to run. All three of them, Abel Scrivens and Ben Walker too, had, with John Pearce and more than a dozen others, found themselves bruised and battered, trussed like chickens before being thrown into the boats and carried down the Thames to Sheerness.

The singing of a hymn had reached a crescendo, the voices rising to a swelling sound that filled the gathering gloom, then stopping abruptly, to leave Captain Sidey beaming with pleasure, that is until he looked sideways to the surgeon.

In a cut-down part of Sidey’s cabin, Ralph Barclay swung in his cot, aware that he was well enough now to have
joined in the choral observance of Sidey’s birthday and just as aware of why he had declined. Every attempt he had made in the last few days to catch hold of his wife and ask her what she meant by saying she had no idea of where she belonged had been thwarted by her insistence that she carry out her nursing duties; she was avoiding him, of course, but there was little he could do about it in such a crowded ship without making obvious to all and sundry the depth of their rift.

The decks below were lined with cots full of the seriously wounded, others were fit enough to use hammocks like the crew. Where he was accommodated was not spacious, and in cutting off part of his own cabin for a post captain – Sidey was an elderly lieutenant, he being a man without the interest or patronage necessary to see him elevated in rank – that too was much constrained. No one, it seemed, had seen anything untoward in Emily taking quarters elsewhere, in a screened-off cabin near that of Lutyens; they saw her as a nurse, not his wife, and, besides, he was an invalid.

When it came to nursing, the one man he had remaining from his ship, the ruffian Devenow, was a better attendant: it was he who had helped Ralph Barclay take the air the day after they weighed from Toulon, he who had caught hold of his collar when, reaching out a hand to steady himself against the roll of the ship, he had stuck out a stump and nearly fallen to his knees. How had he managed to forget his missing
arm when the pain was a constant, occasionally relieved with a dose of laudanum?

How would being a one-winged bird affect his career? That he did not know, though there were plenty of precedents of officers having suffered amputations going on to serve their full term. He knew he must see Admiral Hotham, the only senior patron he could rely on, for the one constant in the King’s Navy, just as it was in normal life, was the need for the application of interest, the ability to call upon the intercession of a powerful patron to help secure advancement.

‘How you farin’, your honour?’

Devenow, a big man with a brutish face, had entered without knocking, and Ralph Barclay was about to damn him for insolence only to check himself: he needed this fellow to care for him so there was no sense in making him sullen.

‘I am in pain. Perhaps Mr Lutyens will spare me a little more tincture.’

‘I’ll see to it right off, your honour.’

‘Did you take part in the singing, Devenow?’

‘Me, your honour, sing?’ the sailor replied, with a smile that showed the gaps in his teeth. ‘I only sing when I is full of grog, as you know. I’ll see to that laudanum.’

How did I end up being cared for by the likes of him? Ralph Barclay thought, as the door closed, showing how little he understood Devenow, a man he had caused to be seized up for a flogging more than once.
A fellow who hoarded his grog until he had enough to get insensibly drunk, and a bully to boot who stole the grog off his messmates, or caused them to hand it over without protest at the implied threat of a beating, he inevitably sought to use his fists on those sent to restrain him. Yet he held no grudge against his captain: in a mind not much given to notions of fairness, he saw it as Ralph Barclay’s right to regularly flog, in the same way as he saw it as his right to get habitually and stupidly inebriated.

Needless to say, in the copious notes Heinrich Lutyens had made regarding the odd habits of the lower-deck ratings, Devenow and his ilk, for he was not alone, occupied several pages.

Ralph Barclay’s desire not to attend Captain Sidey’s feast was thwarted by the need to use the whole of the great cabin to accommodate his guests: the temporary bulkheads erected to form the convalescent cabin had to be struck down so that all the leaves of the dining table could be put in place. Though not by any means a wealthy man, Sidey was determined on a good spread, raiding those stores he had acquired in Italy, for his duties prior to this one had taken him back and forth to Genoa. This allowed him to conjure up a substantial, if plain, meal and, of course, from that source the cheeses were excellent, while the wine was plentiful and of a better quality than the usual blackstrap served on a daily basis.

There was no question but that Emily Barclay had to sit next to her husband: he required assistance to cut his
meat, the ‘Roast Beef of Old England’ as it was termed, even if it was part of an Italian cow. As accompaniment there was a brace of chickens from the coop on the deck and part of an elderly sheep that provided mutton to feed them, the rest, in truth nearly the whole carcase, being given as a birthday treat for the ship’s crew.

At the table, sat as far away as possible from the onearmed man, was John Pearce, given his greatest desire was to put a knife into Ralph Barclay, not into the overcooked fowl on his pewter plate. He had challenged the man to a duel once; if the law did not incarcerate him for his perjury he would do so again. That thought, surfacing as often as it did, was inclined to tempt him to glare, obliging him to take refuge in his goblet of wine.

Lutyens was present, as was Lieutenant Driffield, who had scarce spoke a word to Pearce since coming aboard: their sole conversation had been to confirm that the orders the marine had been given had been carried out, that followed by the impression that the fellow was avoiding him, which Pearce assumed was because he was still smarting about surrendering the cannon to the enemy.

Also attending were two army officers, their wounds of the kind to allow them to be present, as was HMS
Hinslip
’s premier, Mr Ault, a very new naval lieutenant who had a serious problem with his blush: no words of any kind could be addressed to him on any subject without his cheeks going a deep red, and that was also the case if Emily Barclay, the only lady present,
caught his eye, not hard given he was totally smitten and looked at her from under his long, soft eyelashes with the mistaken impression that no one noticed. Sidey, using to the full his right as host to dominate the conversation, was regaling them with his previous service, naming captain after captain who had thought him an excellent subordinate.

‘As for fame, sirs, I served with Captain Arthur Philips and a finer seaman there never was, this being prior to his voyage to New South Wales, of course.’

‘A hellish journey, according to the accounts of those who returned,’ said Lutyens. ‘You do not see, Captain Sidey, anything to gainsay the sending of convicts to such a far-off location.’

‘Got to send them somewhere, Mr Lutyens. After we lost the Americas it was that or hang ’em.’

‘Which you are not in favour of?’ asked one of the army officers, the question slightly garbled by his wounded jaw. ‘Or so I sense by your tone.’

‘Ain’t me, sir, but the juries. They will not convict a felon if they fear he or she faces the rope, so the judges are reluctant to place on the black cap, and as for nippers…’

‘Would you hang a child, captain,’ asked Pearce, ‘for the theft of a loaf of bread when they are starving?’

‘Starving, sir?’ Sidey demanded, forking a large gobbet of greasy mutton into his mouth. ‘They all claim they are starving, Mr Pearce, but how is we to know when and where it is the truth?’

‘Generally a look at the ribs provides a good indication,’ Pearce replied, pointing to those on the beef, visible where it had been carved. ‘If it has the appearance of those on your table, then it is proof enough.’

Having been in prison, John Pearce had seen the kind of undeserving folk that ended up there, just as he had seen the kind of dregs the human race could well do without, the sort that would steal your eyes given half a chance, then come back for the holes. He and his father had been obliged to take turns at sleeping in their original cell, a space so crowded with humanity there was scarce room to lie down, the straw on the floor full of vermin as well as the filth that overflowed from the communal bucket. Thankfully their stay had been brief: Adam Pearce’s friends, fellow radicals, had got together the funds to procure them a private cell and food to eat, before raising a bond for their release.

He had been brought up by a singular man, a peripatetic widower maybe, but a caring parent and, as he had told Emily Barclay, they were rarely still as Adam Pearce journeyed all over the country preaching his solutions to the evils of the existing system of governance, one in which the rich had too much and the poor too little. John Pearce had been taught to wonder how men and woman of means could walk or ride by people dying in the gutters, without asking themselves if their Christianity obliged them to do something about it.

That had been one of his father’s favourite stump
topics, the hypocrisy of religion: Adam Pearce earned his soubriquet of the Edinburgh Ranter on those occasions, as he castigated his audience, churchgoers all, for their indifference to the suffering of others, this while his son, carrying round the hat to collect the funds needed for food and board, kept a weather eye on those who would rob him if they could, too often the offspring of the very people Adam Pearce was demanding his listeners support.

Life had improved in ’89 when the French Revolution sent radical British hearts soaring, more, it turned out, once the dust had settled and the Revolution revealed its true colours, from the fall of the Bourbons than any love of liberty. That bright dawn, as the poet Wordsworth had called it, brought prosperity to Adam Pearce and a degree of fame of the kind he had not previously enjoyed. His opinions had been sought by men of stature, his written pamphlets eagerly purchased and read by folk who thought they would welcome change making life comfortable if not outright wealthy; then a frightened government had reacted a second time to his blasts against privilege, obliging both Adam and his son to flee to France.

‘I see you have a soft heart, Lieutenant,’ said Ault, his cheeks turning bright scarlet as he broke the train of Pearce’s thoughts.

‘Let me say that I would prefer that the needy be taken to somewhere they might prosper than hung up on a gibbet.’

‘From what Captain Phillips has written to me they will not prosper in New South Wales, sir. By all accounts the place is not fertile.’

‘There are parts of it which are, Captain Sidey, for I too, or rather my father, had news of the colony, but they are all in the hands of those who supervise the convicts, not of the convicts themselves.’

‘Do tell them who your father is, Pearce,’ growled Barclay, with a face that matched his tone.

Hitherto silent, Ralph Barclay was suffering from a combination of laudanum and good Italian wine, as well as his proximity to his wife; thus, in his manner and his form of address, he breeched the convention in a naval setting that officers were polite to each other at all times, regardless of personal feelings, for the very simple reason that on voyages that could last for six months or more, not to do so would lead to mayhem and very likely murder.

Pearce’s tone was equally cold. ‘You make it sound, sir, as if I should be ashamed of the connection.’

‘I would if it were me.’

‘But you are not me, Captain Barclay—’

‘Of course not,’ Emily Barclay cut in, a rather forced smile on her face. ‘I am sure you are as proud of your parentage as is my husband.’

‘A toast,’ called Sidey, lifting his goblet high. ‘To our dear mothers and fathers.’

That was not an injunction anyone could gainsay and it was a shrewd ploy by a man who plainly knew
when an argument might brew up to ruin any chance of conviviality. Collectively everyone murmured the words and drank deep. It was young Ault, too stupid or inexperienced to see what his superior had stopped, who asked the question.

‘So, Mr Pearce, is your father someone famous?’

‘Infamous, more like,’ snapped Barclay.

‘Does your wound pain you much?’ said Sidey quickly, seeking an abrupt change of subject, while glaring at his premier. ‘I have often wondered at how one would feel after an amputation.’

‘I have observed, Captain Sidey,’ said Emily, speaking before her husband could respond, ‘that not only does it give great pain but the memory clouds the loss. You will observe, if your manners allow you the curiosity, that my husband constantly reaches for his knife as well as his fork only to be cruelly reminded that he cannot simultaneously lift both.’

‘I am sure, Mrs Barclay, that with you to care for him, your husband has much to comfort him and a striking compensation for his loss.’

Well intentioned, it was precisely the wrong thing to say, which Captain Sidey realised as he saw the thunderous look which crossed Ralph Barclay’s face. Yet his fears that an outburst of foul temper was imminent were groundless: there was no way this particular guest was going to air his marital difficulties in public. Indeed, had Sidey been present more often at Toulon, and mixed with his fellow captains, he would have known to say
nothing: the fact that Emily Barclay had moved from her husband’s cabin to the hospital had been a subject of gossip, just as those who had seen them together in public, for instance at a ball they both attended when it looked as if the allies could hold the port, had observed that it was a less than amicable relationship.

The problem for Sidey and his dinner was that Ralph Barclay had to take his rising anger out on someone, and that had to be John Pearce, the last person to respect his rank or his opinions, and to do so he chose to assuage Mr Ault’s curiosity.

‘His father, young man, is a certain Adam Pearce, who some would name as traitor to his king and country.’

It was instructive to look at the faces around the table: to see who knew the name and who, like Driffield, were ignorant; not that such an obvious lack of knowledge prevented him from then looking aggrieved. If a post captain implied something was deplorable, a lowly marine lieutenant would see it as advantageous to take his part.

‘Was, Captain Barclay,’ Pearce said, in a calm voice. ‘My father is dead, and as for his loyalty, it was to his fellow humans, and in that he never wavered.’

The whole table fell silent, no one looking in Pearce’s direction except Ralph Barclay; it was hard to know who was blushing most, the young premier, or his wife, now looking at her hands, but eventually it was Lutyens who spoke.

‘My father is the pastor of the Lutheran Church in London.’

‘And very well connected, I believe,’ exclaimed Emily, quickly.

‘Oh yes, Queen Caroline often comes there to worship and brings both the king and the princes to do likewise. She does like her masses said and sung in German.’

‘You have been to court yourself, Mr Lutyens?’ asked the jaw-damaged army officer.

‘I have.’

‘Then, sir, you must describe it to us, for it is not a privilege given to many.’

That intervention had everyone sitting forward and saved the dinner, as the conversation moved around Lutyens’s descriptions of Windsor and Buckingham House, as he fielded questions about protocol, the questionable behaviour of the various princes, King George’s health after his bout of madness many years previously; would the Prince of Wales gain the Regency he so badly desired, bringing his Whig friends into power and deposing William Pitt? The only two people who did not take part were John Pearce and Ralph Barclay.

Below decks things had started out jolly enough: Captain Sidey had issued an extra tot of rum to each man and the fresh mutton was a welcome change to the unrelieved diet of salted pork and beef, leavened with slush and peas. But it soon emerged there were tensions, not amongst the crew but between the Pelicans and Sam Devenow, this emerging as the bruiser, with his scarred
face and beetle brow, began to show signs of being drunk. From laughter and good cheer, the atmosphere slowly turned guarded.

As usual he had been hoarding his grog and, unbeknown to the rest of the crew, for those affected did not want to admit it, he had been up to his old tricks in the article of persuasion, which amounted to a close-up sight of his great fist and a request that the victim should forgo his ration and hand it over, something he had once tried on John Pearce. As the rum began to take hold, Devenow’s eye fixed on Michael O’Hagan, a man he had fought and lost to in a bare-knuckle bout; typically, he had since then seen some hidden advantage the Irishman had enjoyed, in short his defeat had been a fluke.

‘You can never trust a Paddy, shipmates, for he allas do something underhand.’

Though not quite shouted, Devenow made his claim in a carrying voice, taking no notice of the fact that there were several Irishmen in the
Hinslip
’s crew. The men who sat at his mess table adopted various ploys to avoid complicity in the statement, either looking hard at the table or, if they were really fearful, fixing the speaker with a blank and non-committal look they hoped would pass for agreement.

‘It’s in their blood, see, and if they are papists it is worse, for they are stupid too.’

‘Sure, it’s a pity,’ Michael said, ‘that jaw of his ever got mending.’

The mess tables, at which they sat, on the gloomy
main deck, were not so far apart, the result being that, even over a quiet babble of conversation, the remark was overheard.

‘They say they has luck, mind,’ Devenow responded. ‘But I reckon they cheat.’

Michael was about to respond, hands on the table ready to raise himself, when another voice spoke, one of the ship’s crew, an older fellow and no Paddy. ‘We have a way with trouble aboard this barky, don’t we mates, an’ I ain’t never met the man that will keep his feet on the deck one dark night when half the crew are intent on chucking him into the briny.’