Man Of War

had done their work well). He laid them aside, and took out Elizabeth’s letter once more. He unwrapped it and gazed at those delighting words again: My dear Captain Peto, and Your ever affectionate Elizabeth Hervey. Such words as he had never seen, or heard! And, oh, how he wished she were here now, in this fine place, his cabin, on the finest of ships. He did not recollect that, before, when he had been at sea, he had ever had a thought of anything but being at sea; he left the shore behind him, and with it all land-bound thoughts. Until now. It was the strangest thing. Neither did he think it unseamanlike, as once undoubtedly he would have done. But, he warned himself, he had better have a care: it would not do to moon – certainly not to be seen to moon. He supposed that married officers somehow attained a sort of . . . equipoise. Perhaps he would, too, a few days out from Gibraltar. It undoubtedly did not serve, sitting unoccupied in his cabin, thus. Better that he be on deck, even though there was no need. And why should there be need? He might enjoy the last of the sun.

The sun, indeed, was fast nearing the horizon, and the words of Milton came to mind. They did so frequently. He had first heard them a dozen years before, aboard his beloved Nisus on her passage east, to India. His new acquaintance, Captain Hervey, ADC to the first soldier of Europe, had several times recited them, since when Peto had read all of Milton’s work, and some of it twice and three times over. And the gilded Car of Day / His glowing Axle doth allay / In the steep Atlantick stream.

What a fortunate encounter his with Hervey had been; though not at all propitious at first. Yet now he was possessed of a fine friend, who would indeed be soon connected to him by marriage. He wondered how his friend fared at the extremity of that dark continent to starboard. And although he was not in the habit of regular prayer (other than the seaman’s need of comfort in the storm) he found himself asking for a blessing for his friend – and for his friend’s family.

The bell sounded the hour. Peto snapped to, and addressed himself to the present – the evening muster. He did not intend going about the ship on this first day at sea (he must leave his lieutenant a little space so soon out and under a new captain), but he would walk the gangboard to the forecastle, casting an eye over as much as he could, animate and otherwise, without too much appearance of inspection.

Marines stood by the carronades, their fighting quarters. It was not unusual, but on the whole he preferred the jollies to be under small arms: they did more service in picking off an enemy’s sharpshooters aloft than raking the decks with grape. He would speak of it to Lambe before tomorrow’s exercise. But what else he saw he approved of – and it was all so different from his own time in a ship of the Line, in Nelson’s day: at evening muster, with the second rum issue not two hours before (and twice the ration it was today) there would be many a man fumbling and stumbling in his stupor, thrashed by the petty officers with a knotted rope end, until some wretched word of insubordination saw him clapped in irons for captain’s punishment – the cat at the grating – next morning. But that had perforce been the way; what other was there with men brought and kept aboard against their will?

He had disliked it, of course; none but a captain predisposed to cruelty could have liked it (there were such men, he would admit). Without the rum few men would have transgressed so; but how could a crew be kept content without grog? Yes, there had been some temperance men – by conviction or through poor constitution – who would drink cocoa or tea instead, trading their tots for coin or credit, but the great majority lived for their rum. It was only the rum ration that had made life bearable. Peto wondered, deep down, if it could be otherwise today were it to come to war with the Turk. He turned and made his way back along the gangboard on the opposite side, passed the guns on the quarterdeck with but a glance, and climbed the companion to the poop.

Two midshipmen stood smartly to attention, and two clerks behind them. Peto looked them up and down in an unofficial sort of way, before fixing on the one: ‘Let me see your telescope, Mr Pelham.’

The signal midshipman handed it to him.

Peto trained it on Archer half a mile ahead and to larboard. ‘You know what is parallax, Mr Pelham?’

‘I do, sir.’

‘Do you consider that your telescope has parallax error?’

Pelham hesitated. ‘I had not, sir.’

‘I very much fear that it does.’ He handed back the instrument.

Pelham put it back under his arm and continued to stand at attention.

‘Have a look, man!’

The unfortunate midshipman did as he was bid. ‘Sir, I see it now.’

Peto turned and stalked away. There was little to be served by telling the man (if man were truly the right word; boy seemed more apt) that he ought to have discovered the error for himself before they left Gibraltar, so that he might have had it rectified – or have found a new one. Neither did Peto want abject humiliation for him in front of two of the crew. All the same, his signal midshipman . . . What did it portend, that below the surface of what he saw with approval – indeed, at his first look below that surface – there was inadequacy?

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