Man Of War mh-9 Read online

  He had thoroughly vexed himself as he came up to the wheel. ‘Mr Lambe, Mr Pelham’s telescope has a pronounced parallax error. How in the name of heaven does he suppose he will read a signal at any distance?’

  The lieutenant was not quite so dismayed. ‘I am certain he would not suppose it, sir. He fell heavily as we beat to. I suspect that is when the damage was done.’

  Peto looked at him, uncomprehending: the deck was motionless.

  ‘He lost his footing coming down from the main mast. He had gone aloft to see if there were any last signals ashore.’

  Peto scowled. It could happen to anybody, though more was the pity young Pelham hadn’t thought to discover the injury to his telescope . . .

  Lambe would not absolve himself, however. ‘I should have insisted he went to the surgeon. But he’s plucky, and wouldn’t surrender the poop to Gardiner. I will have him and the telescope replaced.’

  By now the lieutenants were coming on the quarter-deck to report that all was in good order. Peto took a few paces to the rear to let Lambe work things his way. At length, with the last report made, Lambe was able to turn to him and report that the ship was ready to change to the night routine.

  ‘Very good, Mr Lambe. Secure guns and pipe down hammocks.’

  ‘Ay-ay, sir!’

  Peto cast his eye about one more time. ‘And I would see Mr Pelham back in his place as soon as may be.’

  ‘Ay-ay, sir.’

  ‘And you will join me at dinner?’

  ‘With great pleasure, sir.’

  Peto nodded, his look softening to something approaching a smile, and turned for his cabin.

  An hour later, in fresh linen and his second-best coat, Peto stood looking out of the stern windows, the brilliant red twilight a picture he thought the finest of artists would never be able to capture faithfully, for it was more than mere colour. It would not be long before the moon was up – a good moon, he expected – and they ought to be able to keep a fair rate of sailing throughout the silent hours (the wake was whitening – no doubt of it).

  He ducked into the starboard quarter gallery to observe the set of the sails for a last time before dinner. Hands were already taking in the topgallants; he could want no more of his lieutenant and the master. But then, with but a handful of three-deckers in commission, why should it be other? There was many an able officer who would no more go to sea, for all his capability.

  Things had certainly changed, he mused. Except the ships themselves. Rupert was built a little stronger, perhaps, but in essence – in detail indeed – she was just as Victory. And at Trafalgar Victory had been forty years old. In his time in the East, and lately beached in Norfolk, he had given these matters much thought. He had seen steam manoeuvring to advantage at Rangoon – and, indeed, he had come to Gibraltar by steam packet (though sail had, in truth, conveyed him for much of that journey) – and although he could not imagine how a paddle wheel might move a ship of the Line, he thought it not improbable that some keen-witted engineer would find a way. And if somehow the army’s Shrapnel shell might be adapted, or even one that might explode and rupture a ship’s side, would that not spell the end of the wooden walls? The Navy Board would have to clad its ships in iron, like the knights of old. And had not the knights then become immobile?

  He sighed. Would it come in his time? It was strange: in one breath he longed for the innovation, for the capability was there and others might seize it (the Americans for sure would be thinking of it: they held the old ways in little regard. And the French, of course. None but a fool doubted they were the better shipbuilders; it had been as well they were not the better sailors!). And was not any advantage to be taken to defeat the King’s enemies? Yet in another breath he wished for not one jot of change, for it was the old world that had served so well, and he had mastered it.

  If ever he got his flag and it ended up being soot-specked at the mizzen . . . Well, it would at least be a flag. He had always reckoned that had he been born twenty years earlier he would have made Vice; but now he would be content to retire a rear admiral, and doubtless he would fly his flag ashore rather than at the mizzen mast of a line-of-battle ship.

  A confident knock at the cabin door brought him back to the present.

  ‘Come in!’ he roared (though with the ship under weigh it would have sounded fainter to whoever knocked).

  The door opened and Admiral Codrington’s youngest daughter stepped inside, escorted by Lambe.

  Her appearance gave Peto some surprise. She had put her hair up. She wore a white, long-sleeved muslin dress, embroidered and satin-trimmed, with a gathered bodice and pointed lapels. About her neck were coral and pearls. She looked nearer sixteen than thirteen.

  Peto shifted awkwardly. ‘Miss . . . Rebecca: good evening.’

  She curtsied. ‘Good evening, Captain Peto. This is a very pleasant apartment.’

  He cleared his throat. ‘Indeed, yes, though in the service we call it a cabin. Only the admiral’s is called apartment. Your father will install himself there as soon as we . . . that is, Prince Rupert, joins his squadron.’ He thought for a moment: did he dismay her by such a notion? ‘You are aware, are you not, Miss Codrington, that your father is at sea with the fleet?’

  ‘Oh yes, Captain Peto; I know he is to fight the Turk.’

  He had certainly not expected her to be so particularly informed . . . or so matter of fact. He cleared his throat rather noisily. ‘Well, that is not quite as they would have it in London, though it may come to it, which is why we make haste now for the Peloponnese.’ He smiled. ‘Not that I mean, of course, that you go to the Peloponnese, Miss Codrington. The sloop accompanying us will take you into Malta as we pass the island.’

  Rebecca frowned. ‘I wish I could go to Greece. I have read Thucydides, you know.’

  Peto saw Lambe’s eyes widening. He hoped his own were not doing so. ‘Indeed, indeed. Do you read the Hobbes or the Smith?’

  Rebecca looked mildly put out. ‘No, Captain Peto, I read from the Greek. I have been taught it since I was ten.’

  Flowerdew, who had been standing in the corkscrew fashion that he invariably adopted when there were guests of whom he did not wholly approve – or, as in this case, simply could not fathom – stepped forward to his captain’s rescue. ‘Wine, sir?’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said Peto, grateful yet again for his steward’s sense of occasion and timing. ‘Will you take a little . . . wine, Miss Co—, Miss Rebecca?’

  ‘Thank you, Captain Peto, I shall.’

  ‘Hock?’ He enquired as if she might not know the word, let alone its suitability.

  ‘Hock would be very agreeable,’ she replied, with a bright smile.

  Peto looked at his lieutenant, who wore an expression of suppressed mirth. ‘Mr Lambe?’

  ‘Thank you, Captain:most agreeable.’

  Flowerdew already had the bottle uncorked and in a cooler – and two more, and three of burgundy (his hands were a shade rheumaticky these days, and he liked to have plenty of time with corks).

  ‘How long shall it take us to reach Malta, Captain Peto?’ asked Rebecca, taking her glass and smiling at Flowerdew, who merely frowned, if rather sweetly.

  ‘If this wind freshens a little more, as I expect it to do, a week, six days perhaps.’

  Rebecca looked pleased at the prospect. ‘But you will not confine me to my cabin for that time, Captain Peto?’

  ‘By no means. You may have the freedom of the quarterdeck, your maid too, of course. But I would that you did not leave your quarters unless accompanied . . . by a steward, or the like.’

  Rebecca nodded. ‘Where is the quarterdeck to be found?’ she asked, sipping at her hock.

  Peto, though startled somewhat by the lack of knowledge, was nevertheless pleased that conversation was not inhibited by the disparity of age. ‘It is the deck you walked hither. It is reserved for the officers.’

  ‘But may I see the guns? I saw a very little of them when I came on board.’

&nb
sp; Peto hesitated. ‘If there is opportunity.’ There would be opportunity enough to hear them; that was certain. ‘Tomorrow we shall exercise the guns. If the weather is fine you may observe from the quarterdeck, but you will have to fill your ears with lint. I’ll have the surgeon give you some.’

  ‘Thank you, Captain Peto!’

  It was extraordinary. He could not determine whether she was a child who periodically sounded like an adult, or vice versa; but she was engaging company for sure. ‘What say you, Lambe?’ he tried, thinking to con the subject away from gunnery.

  His lieutenant was uncertain what he was asked: the matter was evidently decided. And then he realized that his captain was in need of a tow. ‘I say, sir, that I believe we shall have a fair day for it’ (the weather was always a safe subject). ‘A red sky at evening muster, and high cloud.’

  ‘Just so,’ agreed Peto.

  Flowerdew took a step forward. ‘Cook says not to be long about the wine, sir, else the lobster’ll go leatherlike.’

  Peto thanked him, and took note. His cook had been with him these dozen years and more, and he was not inclined to try his devotion too much – especially not on his first night at sea in twelve months.

  They moved to the fine old table in the steerage, Peto at the head, Rebecca on his right. It was not his custom to say grace privately, or at such a gathering as this, and so he tucked his napkin into the open-front of his coat and picked up knife and fork. He was about to comment upon the fine appearance of the lobster, by way of opening, but Rebecca spoke first.

  ‘Mama says that now Lord Goderich is prime minister there will be no war. Mama says that it was only Mr Canning who wished for war. What is your opinion, Captain Peto?’

  Flowerdew poured more hock, giving his captain a glance, eyebrows raised.

  ‘My opinion, Miss Rebecca? In truth I should not be in the least surprised to find that your father has had communication from Constantinople instructing him to withdraw from the Ionian. I believe it is true that Mr Canning was the principal architect of the treaty by which we now intervene in the Greek war, and that by all accounts Goderich is a mild sort of fellow, but the treaty obliges us to act, and it is certain that France – and most certainly the Tsar – will not rest until the Ottoman Porte is humbled in this. I must say that Canning’s dying in all this is deuced inconvenient.’ He looked at Lambe in a manner that invited comment.

  ‘I would say, sir, that the Tsar will not be content until the Turk is well and truly humbled, and he can sail his ships through the Bosporus when he will.’

  ‘You are surely in the right there, Mr Lambe.’

  ‘This treaty, Captain Peto: have you seen it?’

  Peto smiled, a shade indulgently (it was endearing that she should think him elevated enough to be given sight of the Treaty of London), but also wryly, for although in large part the treaty was secret, The Times had published the salient clauses within a week of its signing. ‘I have not read the treaty in its entirety, Miss Rebecca. There was – you may know – a protocol’ (he paused; she nodded her familiarity with the word) ‘made last year between the Tsar and the King, and this provided for us to take steps to persuade the Turks to leave Greek waters – which is why the Mediterranean fleet was despatched to the Peloponnese, and your father made commander-in-chief.’

  Rebecca nodded again, without the slightest sign of girlish pride in a father’s position, rather with an intensity for understanding what she might.

  ‘It was only in July, when the French joined the alliance, that a formal treaty was signed.’ Peto took a sip of his wine, rather feeling the need of it suddenly. ‘And that treaty, I understand, was based largely upon the earlier protocol, but with a secret clause, which was that if the Porte would not accept mediation within one month, the three allies would send consuls to Greece – which, of course, is but a short step from recognizing the country – and that if the Porte, or for that matter the Greeks, refused an armistice,’ (he looked at her again for assurance that she understood, and she again nodded) ‘then the allies would interpose between them in order to prevent hostilities.’

  Flowerdew coughed, and Peto began wolfing his lobster.

  Lambe came to the relief. ‘I think you will see, Miss Rebecca, what a responsibility your father bears. He has a fine fleet, and the Turks know they cannot prevail against the Royal Navy. And when Rupert joins him it will be manifest to them that there is no other way than an armistice, for she is certainly the biggest ship in the Mediterranean.’

  Rebecca’s face lit up. ‘I would so very much like to be there when my father’s ships make the Turks turn away!’

  ‘Ah,’ said Lambe, without perhaps thinking. ‘What if they should not turn away; what if they were to fight from a feeling of indignation?’

  Peto, his mouth unfortunately full, was unable to protest, and so the conversation was not diverted from the alarming prospect of bloodshed.

  ‘If my father were to come on board this ship, Mr Lambe, I should want to stand beside him, especially if it came to a fight!’

  Peto, managing to swallow a prodigious mouthful with the aid of half the contents of his wine glass, cleared his throat pointedly. ‘Miss Rebecca, your spirit is admirable, as I would have imagined it to be in the daughter of Sir Edward Codrington, but I would counsel against too bellicose a stance. I do not believe His Majesty intends that we go to war with the Turk!’ Except that he, Peto, was of the opinion that placing themselves between Greek and Turk could lead to one thing only, for the Turks were too proud a people, and the Greeks too devious (rather try steering a middle course between Scylla and Charybdis than these two!).

  When the remains of the lobsters were cleared, and the finger bowls, Flowerdew brought a rack of lamb.

  ‘You may be lucky, Miss Rebecca; you may yet eat fresh meat the while to Valetta,’ tried Peto, intending to lighten the table talk (he had bought two near-full-grown lambs at Gibraltar, though scraggy specimens by English measure). ‘Otherwise it will be the salting barrels.’

  ‘Oh, I think I should be happy on salt beef, Captain Peto, if that is what you would eat.’

  Truth was, Peto was never at all happy on the damnable ship’s ration – a binding regime ten days out of port once all the fresh leaf was gone, and which no quantity of apples could quite relieve. But evidently Miss Rebecca Codrington was determined to be a worthy admiral’s daughter, and he must take care not to appear too dismissive of her purpose, however naive it was. He smiled. ‘Your attitude does you credit. Now, may I enquire why you travel to Malta? Shall you stay there long?’

  Flowerdew poured the burgundy, which Peto first tasted and approved.

  Rebecca sipped hers with confidence. ‘I am to take up residence with my family, Captain Peto. I imagine I shall stay for as long as Mama is there. She has engaged a governess.’

  Peto nodded, but rather to say that within a couple of years she would need a guard not a governess. She was a pretty thing. Every midshipman and lieutenant would soon be taking soundings. He had observed how his fellow midshipman had made love to Admiral Tryon’s daughter at Portsmouth, and to Griffin’s at Gibraltar, and they not a deal older. Not he, though; the wild Norfolk coast had taught him many things, but not how to present himself with advantage to a female.

  Conversation turned to Malta, its history and people. Peto knew the island well, and Lambe had once spent the best part of a year there when his ship had been laid up in repair. Rebecca was eager to hear everything.

  A fruit compote followed the roast. It tasted strongly of rum, but Rebecca appeared to enjoy it, with copious cream. When they were finished, Flowerdew brought a Stilton cheese, but before they could begin there was a knock at the door. Flowerdew answered it.

  ‘Lieutenant of the watch presents ’is compliments, sir. Unlit sail to southward.’

  ‘I will go if you wish, sir,’ said Lambe, pushing his chair back.

  ‘Very good, Mr Lambe.’ Peto had no intention of turning out on so sketchy a report
(he had no intention of doing anything in such circumstances that he would not have done aboard Nisus: it was not his way to make any false show of address).

  When Lambe was gone, Rebecca asked what was the nature of the report. Peto explained that standing orders required the officer of the watch to send word to the captain if there were unidentified sail to windward, and that it was then the captain’s discretion. The report was of an unlit (or, as likely, ill-lit) ship on the weather gage. A three-decker had nothing to fear, but a darkened ship off the Barbary Coast was worth attention.

  Rebecca declined the Stilton (Peto wondered if it were on account of the maggots: two or three had, most insolently, wriggled out). ‘Will your wife come to Malta, Captain Peto?’ she asked, with what sounded like hopefulness.

  Peto’s hand almost miscarried the decanter of port. ‘I do not have a wife, Miss Rebecca. That is, I do not have a wife yet . . .’ (he cleared his throat) ‘I mean that I shall have a wife . . . I am to be married.’

  Rebecca’s face lit up once more. ‘Oh, Captain Peto, that is very delightful!’

  Peto struggled to conceal his own absolute pleasure in the subject. It was delightful; it was the most delightful thing ever to have happened to him (for delight was not the appropriate word to describe taking command of a ship). This child – this young woman indeed – had a way with directness that was altogether disarming. He bowed, obliged.

  ‘May I enquire who is the lady, Captain Peto?’

  ‘You may indeed!’ he replied, seizing the decanter again, this time with great firmness, and recharging his glass (Flowerdew then discreetly replaced the stopper and removed the remainder of the port, to Peto’s faint discomfiture). ‘She is the sister of a very dear friend of mine; an officer of light dragoons, however, not a naval officer.’

  ‘But you both wear a blue coat!’ she said brightly.

  Peto smiled, and nodded slowly, acknowledging the aptness of the observation. ‘We do indeed, Miss Rebecca Codrington; we do indeed. You are evidently a keen student of uniform.’ He was surprised by how easily he teased. It was all on account of that letter – that astonishing letter: ‘the world turned upside down’, as went the song he had once sung in the midshipmen’s berth.