Blackwood said, ‘Slavery was stamped out, sir.’
‘Huh, that would have happened anyway. It was Lagos they wanted, but those politicians had to justify their reasons for taking it.’ He spat out the words, ‘The seeds of Empire! Bloody rubbish!’ He gestured to the decanter. ‘Pour some more sherry.’
Then Ashley-Chute said slowly, ‘I wanted you to know that I appreciated your part in that campaign. You were the hinge in the door, so to speak, and but for you there could have been a severe setback. As it was, the campaign cost us two thousand officers and men.’ He glared at his glass. ‘For that stinking coast and all the trouble it will bring us.’ He looked up again, his monkey face impassive. ‘If you repeat a word of what I said I’ll have you boiled in oil.’
‘Of course, sir.’
So that was it. The little admiral’s way of saying he was sorry that he was the only one who had gained nothing from the whole affair.
‘Never try to discover a reason, Blackwood. Just do it. It’s always been my way in the past and I have no intention of changing.’ He looked around as if to find the right words. ‘Not even for the Tsar of bloody Russia!’
Two days later the
Tenacious
, accompanied by her small flotilla of steam vessels, left the Grand Harbour and put to sea. The bands played from the battery and rockets were discharged over the darkening water until the winking lights finally disappeared.
It was a gala occasion, a display of pride and cheerful arrogance for the admiral and his latest command.
It was much the same aboard the flagship, although for different reasons. Colour-Sergeant M’Crystal was grateful to get his worst troublemakers contained where he could watch and control them. Private Frazier cared for his new rifle with something akin to love. He had practised on the range until
he could hit a small target at three hundred yards, and could hardly wait to use his rifle in deadly earnest. Corporal Jones, as reliable and conscientious as ever, still nursed the grief for his dead friend, Corporal Bly. It was strange, he thought, that he had never got over it. He knew he was wrong, but he could not find anything to like in the new corporal, and that disturbed him deeply. The Rocke twins settled down again to shipboard life and to the business of tormenting Sergeant Quintin. The adjutant, Lieutenant Speer, grew gaunt with worry as he thought about his wife in England and the affair she had been having when he had last caught her. Lieutenant Harry Blackwood, on the other hand, was twice his old self, always cheerful and easy with his men, with nothing to show of the humiliating strain he had been under.
Lieutenant-Colonel Rupert Fynmore was very satisfied. He was the right age and held the right rank. New horizons stretched in every direction. He had already forgotten how he had dreaded being discharged from the Corps or dropped into some meaningless post which led nowhere. There had never been a general in his family. But now things would change.
It warmed his heart to realize he held the same rank as his late father, the same as Captain Blackwood’s father also. He often congratulated himself on his choice of a young wife. She came from a respected military family, and that fact would do no harm at all when the time came.
The network of courier-brigs and fast packets kept the Mediterranean’s flag-officers informed of world events, but the mass of seamen and marines remained in ignorance as to what was happening.
While Ashley-Chute’s squadron moved eastward on its slow and unhurried cruise, news was received that Russian forces had invaded more Turkish territory, and in self-defence the Sultan had declared war. Later, when
Tenacious
lay at anchor and suffered the indignities of coaling ship, Ashley-Chute was informed that a strong Russian force had sailed from Sebastopol and had totally destroyed a Turkish squadron with great loss of life.
Throughout Ashley-Chute’s command there seemed to be little sympathy for the Turks. Russia had, after all, been Britain’s ally against them just twenty-six years earlier.
Philip Blackwood had noticed the arrival of several French men-of-war in the Eastern Mediterranean, and their captains had often been aboard to meet Ashley-Chute and presumably to discuss possible strategy.
But daily routine continued, sail and gun drills, coaling ship and washing-down again.
It was an ordinary day too when the flagship’s company was piped aft to hear an announcement by the captain.
If Ashley-Chute resembled a monkey, then Captain Montagu Jervis was certainly everything a bulldog should be.
Short but heavily built, he looked older than his years because of his sweeping, ‘heavy swell’ side-whiskers. He was a stern, even severe captain, but seemed to be quite at ease with his admiral, and Blackwood often wondered what had become of Ackworthy, his original flag-captain.
On this particular morning, as the seamen swarmed aft, Captain Jervis stood with his commander, cap tugged over his eyes, his hands in his pockets until silence had eventually fallen over his ship.
Blackwood waited with the other officers and watched the captain’s impressive side-whiskers blowing slightly in the breeze and wondered what was so important.
Jervis said in his hard voice, ‘The Russians have shown no sign that they intend to release their hold on Turkish lands, and Her Majesty’s Government have consequently ordered us to enter the Black Sea without further delay.’
That was all he said. But it was no longer an ordinary day. Britain was at war.
Harry Blackwood stared at the shore and grimaced. ‘The Turkish Empire? If that is what the rest of it looks like, I think we must be fighting on the wrong side.’
Blackwood glanced at him curiously. His half-brother seemed to be constantly on edge, his original good humour had vanished.
It was true that the first excitement of being part of a war had somewhat disappeared after the squadron had passed through the Bosphorus and into the Black Sea. Nobody was quite sure what he had expected, but with the exception of a few patrols within sight of the Russian coast they had seen and done nothing.
Now, anchored off the Turkish port of Varna at the western end of the enclosed sea, the squadron swung to its anchors and gazed longingly at the low-roofed town.
‘Is something wrong, Harry?’
Harry looked at him uncertainly. ‘I’m sick of kicking my heels like this. I sometimes wish I’d cut with family tradition and gone for a line regiment. If I have to mount one more guard of honour for the French and Turkish High Command I really will go mad!’
Blackwood tried to put his half-brother’s discontent from his mind. When they had last dropped anchor after a fruitless patrol in search of Russian ships there had been sacks of letters waiting for the squadron. Sweethearts and wives, news from home, the vital link with that other world.
There had been one for him posted in Cairo.
He had already written several times to the address she had given him but this was the first real news he had received in reply. It appeared that all his letters had arrived at once, and he was touched that she had taken the trouble to read them all in order and with great care. He was also surprised that it had been so easy to converse by letter. Perhaps he had half expected her to break with him as soon as she had left Malta.
She wrote with warmth and affection, as if they had been lovers instead of brief companions. Blackwood had read her letter so many times it was crumpled from constant handling. Harry, always so confident and assured about his lady friends, would have laughed at him if only he knew.
A midshipman saluted and said, ‘Captain’s compliments, sir, and would you muster a guard. The admiral is returning aboard directly.’
‘Very well. Pipe for Sergeant Quintin, if you please.’
So the admiral was coming back. He had been across in the senior flagship for most of the day, probably giving vent to his own hatred for inaction with his immediate superior.
Harry tightened his sword-belt and stamped his feet on the deck. It had been a close thing that time. He had almost burst out to Philip about the letter he had received from Fynmore’s wife in Malta. It had been devoid of love and mystery and had been filled with remorse and fear.
She had apparently met another officer after the squadron had sailed from Grand Harbour, and from the tone of her letter Harry guessed she had not been so successful in gaining the upper hand. She was with child and quite obviously terrified at the possible consequences when Fynmore found out about it.
Harry swallowed hard and stared at the anchored frigates and steam gunboats nearby browsing beneath their usual haze of dusty smoke. She may have had the child already. She had also hinted that she would plead her husband’s forgiveness if only for the good of their reputations. If that failed she would do something terrible.
Harry looked forward as the first squad of marines tramped
up a companion ladder and moved to the entry port in readiness for the admiral.
Suppose it all came out about his own attentions to her? Fynmore was already jealous of the Blackwood family, no matter what he pretended. Something like this would ruin everything.
A barge moved from the other flagship’s shadow, and with the oars rising and falling like wings turned towards the
Tenacious.
Sergeant Quintin reported, ‘Guard ready for inspection,
sir.
’
Blackwood watched his half-brother as he carried out a cursory inspection. No shared jokes with his men now. The marines resented his unexplained change. It showed on their stiff faces.
Captain Montagu Jervis strode heavily across the quarterdeck and looked grimly at the barge. He nodded to Blackwood and murmured, ‘I hope that Sir James is in good humour. The frigates have reported a coal shortage in the port. It will be a week at least before fresh supplies arrive.’ He glared up at the impeccably furled sails of his ship. ‘How can you run a modern fleet with stone-age brains in control?’
But when Ashley-Chute’s head and shoulders rose over the ship’s side he appeared to be in an extremely affable mood.
He touched his hat casually to the guard and waited for the chorus of trilling calls to fall silent. Then to the quarterdeck at large he said cheerfully, ‘Prepare for sea, gentlemen. It’s
action
this time, so stir yourselves.’
Even Captain Jervis’s gruff explanation about the coal supplies did not appear to dampen his humour.
‘Well, what did you expect from a bunch of godless heathen, eh, Captain?’ He rubbed his hands together and added, ‘Just so long as the flagship is ready, hmm?’
With his flag-lieutenant trotting behind him he hurried below the poop towards his quarters.
Later at a hastily called conference Captain Jervis explained the cause of his admiral’s excitement.
Just before the outbreak of war with Russia the battery at Odessa had fired on Her Majesty’s Ship
Furious
, despite her flag of truce, as she was about to parley over bringing any British subjects away from the port. One of the first operations after the declaration of war had been for the fleet to bombard that same battery and to leave it and many of the harbour installations wrecked and burning.
Now it seemed there was a second large battery which had been sited just to the east of Odessa, which was being used to protect an assortment of Russian men-of-war lying at anchor there.
If a full scale invasion was eventually to be mounted against the Russians, the British and their allies had to hold command of all the sea routes which carried their troops and supplies.
Captain Jervis said in his usual severe manner, ‘We will bring those ships to action and destroy them, the battery too if need be.’
It sounded simple enough, and the effect on the ship’s company was immediate as the news spread from mess to mess.
As dusk closed over the anchorage
Tenacious
, accompanied by the steam-frigate
Sarpedon
, and the little paddle-gunboat
Rupert
, headed away from the land.
The other vessels watched in frustrated silence as the flagship’s company manned the yards and cheered as if they had already won a resounding victory.
Aft in the great cabin Ashley-Chute cocked his head to listen and to share the moment.
During his long career he had been criticized and berated many times, and more than once had been replaced by another officer because of his ideas and tactics. But in each case he had known himself to be right, and when others had doubted he had stood firm. A hard challenge demanded a harder solution. He knew he would never end his days in the peace and security of Admiralty, but he no longer cared. Here was where he belonged. Unfettered by higher authority and with the power of right and justice on his side.
The deck tilted slightly to the thrust of a south-westerly wind and he smiled wryly as he thought of his flag-captain’s eagerness to use his mechanical power. That could wait. In his mind’s eye he could picture
Tenacious
with all her canvas spread and filling to the wind. There was no finer sight. No wonder the sailors cheered. Ignorant and insubordinate they might be, but they shared his pride in the ship and what she stood for.
They all feared him, and the idea amused him. He recalled Blackwood when they had first met all those years ago in New Zealand. Pale and angry after the savage fight, and determined to defend his dead major’s name.
Maybe that was why he had retained Captain Blackwood in
Audacious.
He was the only one he could remember who had ever stood up to him.
His servant tiptoed into the cabin and waited anxiously.
Ashley-Chute waved his hand. ‘Some port, I think, Fisher. One of the
special
ones, hmm?’
The servant hurried away, grateful that the sun was still shining over his master’s head.
Two days after weighing anchor at Varna the
Tenacious
’s masthead lookout reported land fine on the larboard bow.
They had made very good time, with a strengthening south-westerly under their coat-tails to give them an extra thrust through the water. The frigate and the little gunboat had mercifully avoided any sort of mechanical breakdown, and had even used their sails to maintain station on the flagship.