Touch and Go (7 page)

Troubridge was something of a legend, known as Lord Nelson's close friend and follower, a man with a great reputation as a seaman but not as a courtier when ashore. He was noted for a severity which was originally copied from Lord St. Vincent, the greatest disciplinarian of all. If the
Merlin
passed muster with Troubridge, Delancey had achieved something.

“Good-morning, captain. Your ship does you credit. You will, I fancy, have brought us the mail?”

“Yes, sir. I have also to hand you, in person, this letter from Rear-Admiral Fothergill. It is to place the sloop
Merlin
under your orders.”

“I can make good use of her,” replied the Commodore, taking the letter, “and your first task will be to take your convoy over to Gozo, where the bulk of the supplies will be unloaded. You will guard the anchorage there until the unloading is completed. Report to my pennant when this has been done.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

The purpose of this order was clear enough. Gozo was quite close to Malta and had a small port on the nearer side, with an outer anchorage sheltered to some extent by the larger island. Gozo was in British hands and was serving as a base for the close blockade of Valletta. The port of Gozo was a narrow creek with white houses on either side and a small breakwater. Beyond it, inland, could be glimpsed in the distance the dome of the cathedral at Vittoria, the island's capital. Once the storeships were in this anchorage the
Merlin
dropped anchor to seawards of them. She was still there, as it happened, on the last day of the year, which was also the last day of the century.

Delancey marked the occasion by inviting all his officers and midshipmen to a late supper which would end after midnight. He had provided for the occasion a lamb, a small pig, some chicken and plenty of Maltese wine, with some captured brandy to finish with. The warrant and petty officers had planned a party under the boatswain's presidency, the two watches were celebrating and only the look-out men were on deck providing the anchor watch. It was a dark but windless night, still enough to catch the sounds of celebration on board the storeships, at anchor together nearer the shore.

The after cabin in the
Merlin
was of no great size and the space was a little cramped for such an occasion. The meal had been cleared away and the officers were seated round a candlelit mahogany table, with fruit and nuts before them and with decanters still in circulation. The stern windows looked out on darkness save for a distant light or two on an anchored fishing boat. Conversation was lively and Stirling started an argument when he suggested, with a hint of Scots pedantry, that the new century would really begin twelve months hence, but the others agreed to dismiss this idea as heresy.

“What matters,” said Mather, “is the way we date our letters. All our lives we have been writing ‘17 something' but from tomorrow it will be ‘1800.' We must feel that we are entering a new period of history.”

“What will be new about it?” asked Stirling. “We shall still be fighting the same war.”

“And why not?” said Delancey. “War is our trade and I, for one, have no other. I give you a toast, gentlemen: to the fall of Valletta!”

The toast was drunk with enthusiasm but Northmore added a word of complaint.

“For my part, sir, I can't see why the place has not fallen already. Here are all these Maltese eager for battle or anyway hating the French, and the French troops must be a starving handful.”

“Perhaps you were never there,” said Mather. “The ramparts must be seen to be believed. You would think them the work of giants, not of men. An assault, believe me, is out of the question.”

“That's true enough,” agreed Langford. “The fortress is a masterpiece, no question of that. I saw it once in peacetime and have never forgotten it. And this General Vaubois won't give in easily.”

“I suppose,” said Mather thoughtfully, “that he hopes for relief, a convoy from France with naval escort.”

“He is going to be damned hungry until it comes,” said Stirling.

“I think his worst trouble will be lack of fuel,” said Mather. “It's a curious fact that men cannot eat grain—supposing he has grain—without cooking it. And the cook can do nothing without fuel, whether wood, charcoal, oil or coal. Malta has little fuel of its own at the best of times and Valletta, of course, has none.”

“Guernsey, where I grew up,” said Delancey, “is much the same, with driftwood at a premium. We burn furze there and sometimes seaweed. But you are right, Mr Mather. Even rats have to be cooked. Don't you agree, Mr Northmore?”

“Well, sir, I have heard that rats are eaten sometimes in the gunroom but I have never seen it. I think it's a yarn told to youngsters who have just come aboard.”

“Well, it's more than a yarn so far as the French are concerned in Valletta,” said Stirling. “By the time they surrender they'll have tried everything.”

There was, however, no shortage at Delancey's table that night and the glasses were all filled afresh as the hour of midnight approached. Then the conversation died away and there was a minute of silence before the ship's bell sounded and everyone cheered. Delancey then proposed the toast “To the new century!” As he did so there came the distant sound of church bells ashore in Gozo and the crackle and bang of fireworks from the fishing harbour. Delancey then excused himself and went off to visit the other messes, proposing the same toast at each of them.

He afterwards resumed his place and saw to it that glasses were refilled for the loyal toast, the first of the new year. After rapping on the table and calling for silence, Delancey said “Gentlemen, the King!” All remained seated, as was the naval custom, and all responded “The King!” or, in Mather's case “The King, God bless him!” Young Topley, nerved by an unaccustomed allowance of wine, remarked that the loyal toast was never drunk in the mess of the Royal Fusiliers—they had been told by a previous King that they need not show their loyalty—it was not in question.

Conversation became general again and was at its height when a monster rocket exploded over Gozo, lighting the shoreline that could be glimpsed through the stern windows. For an instant the whole anchorage was as light as day. Then it was dark again and there suddenly came an outcry from on deck and the noise alongside of splintered woodwork.

“See what it is,” said Delancey to young Northmore, who was gone in an instant. “That rocket must have been costly! The Maltese and Gozotans have a great love of fireworks, I hear. They are usually reserved for the saints' days but the new year is evidently observed as piously.”

“I can never understand,” said Stirling, “how they can afford what they spend in this way. These Maltese scratch a poor living out of a stony soil. One wouldn't suppose that they had sixpence between them.”

“If they saved up for the celebration of the new century,” said Mather, “they would know at least that it wouldn't happen too often.” There was some laughter over this, which ended rather abruptly with Northmore's return. If he had been merry, he was quickly sobered.

“Beg pardon, sir. There's a Frenchman been taken in a boat alongside. His craft was sunk with a round shot and he has been taken prisoner.”

“This is where our party must end,” said Delancey. “I'll bid you good-night, gentlemen. It would seem that the year 1800 has brought me work to do.”

It was the gunner who had been standing anchor watch and it was he who brought the prisoner below under escort. He was something over twenty years old, an apparently nervous and shifty character, painfully thin and apparently starving, wrapped in a blanket but still blue with cold. With a thin and sallow face, hollow eyes and untidy hair, the prisoner did not make a favourable impression.

“A Frenchman, sir,” reported the gunner, “deserter from the
Boudeuse
frigate.”

“Thank you, Mr Helliwell. Have you searched him for arms?”

“Yes, sir. He had a thing like a midshipman's dirk and I took it from him.”

“Good. You can leave the prisoner with me and the escort outside the door.”

The prisoner was told to sit down and the interrogation followed, in French, Delancey making notes as he went on.

“Who are you?”

“Giuseppe Pozzo, Enseigne de Vaisseau.”

“Of what ship?”

“The
Boudeuse,
frigate.”

“What is your function on board that ship?”

“None, sir. She has been broken up for firewood.”

“So you were serving ashore?”

“As Aide-de-Camp to Admiral Decrès.”

“And yet you are a deserter. Why?”

“News came recently to Valletta that this man Napoleon has come to power in France.”

“How did the news come?”

“In a fishing boat from Napoli.”

“I see. But what difference does this make to you?”

“I also come from Corsica and I know the Bonaparte family—a vile, avaricious and thieving tribe of banditti. I could suffer starvation for the people of France and even for the leaders of the revolution, but for one of the Bonaparte—never!”

“So you deserted in a small boat. Where were you going? To Gozo?”

“God, no! They would kill me there. I was hoping to find a ship from Naples or Sicily. This was the ship I tried first.”

“Does she look like an Italian merchantman?”

“It is dark, sir. I smelt cooking and could not tear myself away. I have had no proper meal for weeks—no, for months.”

“Not even on the Admiral's staff?”

“For us it was worse. The Admiral was setting an example.”

“I see. What would you have done had you not been seen?”

“I should have tried these other ships, between you and the shore.”

“And when you found they too are British?”

“I should have given myself up to the British, never to the Maltese. You will at least treat me as a prisoner of war.”

“Don't be too sure of that. I could send you back to Decrès to face a firing squad.”

The young man looked terrified, his voice now shrill with alarm and protest:

“You have sent no other deserters back.”

“No other officers have deserted. My Commodore, Sir Thomas Troubridge, is a disciplinarian above all else. He has no sympathy for deserters. He will send you back under a flag of truce.”

“How can I save myself? What do you want from me?”

“Information.”

“I'll tell you all I know. We are starving, as you can see for yourself. We have been reduced to eating horses, dogs, cats—even rats.”

“Which meat do you prefer?”

“Asses' meat is best when you can find it, provided that the beast is not more than three or four years old.”

“How interesting. But that is not the sort of information I want. My mind is dwelling, I find, on a different problem. General Vaubois has been summoned to surrender but he has refused with scorn. Why? Because he expects relief. And I feel, myself, that he is right: that an attempt to relieve the fortress must soon be made. He and Admiral Decrès must have been told that help is on the way. When is this convoy to sail and from what port?”

“How should I know, sir? I am an officer of the lowest rank, what you would call a midshipman, not one who would attend a Council of War.”

“Listen, Citizen Pozzo, Signor Pozzo or whatever you prefer to be called. You fail, I think, to realise your position. You may be dead within a few hours.”

“I don't believe that your Commodore will send me back to Valletta. You are just trying to frighten me. Sir Troubridge would not stoop to murder.”

“You feel sure of that? Perhaps you are right. My better plan, in that case, is to hand you over to the Maltese.”

“You can't do that!”

“Why not? Can't I ask our allies to accept the custody of a prisoner of war?”

“It would be murder!”

“Look, young man. You are an enemy, you say, of Napoleon Bonaparte, for whom this fortress is being held. You must therefore want to see the fortress capitulate—with, of course, the honours of war. Now, think again. You will either talk or take the consequences. I have never supposed that Admiral Decrès is a very sympathetic type—but you, of course, will know him better than I do. As against that, the Maltese have no reason at all to like the French. General Bonaparte behaved so badly—don't you think?—while here! In your place, I should decide to talk.”

“But what should I know?” The young man's knuckles whitened as he twisted and untwisted his hands.

“As A.D.C. to Rear-Admiral Decrès, you must know when the relief attempt is to take place. That is a fact about which we need not argue. Allow me to refresh your memory. . . . Sentry! Pass the word for my steward.” Teesdale appeared as if by magic.

“Steward, is there something left over from our supper?”

“Yes, sir. There is soup, a chicken and half a leg of lamb. I could hot it up in a minute, sir.”

“Do that and put a decanter on the tray—with a little cheese, perhaps, and a few dates.”

Teesdale withdrew and Delancey, gazing out of the stern windows, began to think aloud:

“If I were Bonaparte, I should make my relief attempt in January while the nights are long, or perhaps early in February I should collect a squadron of some strength and a few good transports laden with ammunition and essential supplies. But I should realise that a simple plan must fail, the relief being expected. So all must depend on choosing the right commander; perhaps a junior Rear-Admiral, perhaps a Commodore. He must combine daring with caution. Or would two men be better, one to direct and the other to dash in? I have somehow to remove the blockading squadron before my supply ships can enter Grand Harbour. How? By defeating it? Or could I gain the same result by allowing it a victory?

“I have another squadron—I remind myself—under the guns of Valletta, including one very powerful ship. How is that squadron to be used and how can I bring it into action at the right time? That is, I tell myself, a difficult problem. I might begin—no, I will put it more strongly, I must certainly begin—with a clever deception plan. A young officer, to begin with, might fall into the enemy's hands. How? He could be a deserter with a personal grudge against me. For this role I might well choose a Corsican, one who could tell some story about a family feud. There are such feuds in Corsica, as all the world must know. Many people have read that book by James Boswell . . .”