Man Of War

Trafalgar: in three days’ time they would be toasting ‘The Immortal Memory’. And he would be proposing it aboard his own ship, a three-decker in the very image of Victory. Except, of course, the admiral would by then have transferred his flag to Rupert, and it would be his to propose the toast. No matter: Codrington was no Nelson, but it would be honour indeed to have his flag fly at the foremast.

Peto sighed. First, of course, there was the little question of Miss Codrington. It was astonishing to him that in a fortnight’s beating up to the Ionian they had encountered not one of His Majesty’s ships, nor even a trustworthy merchantman, to which this precious cargo could be transferred. How different it was from those great and glorious Trafalgar days when a signal might be repeated the length of the Mediterranean with speed and facility. He exaggerated, naturally; it was the way with men of war who had not yet come fully to terms with peace. Except that, to his mind, it was more the case that parliament had not come to terms with the true nature of peace. What said Thucydides? – Peace is but a cessation of hostilities in a war that is never- ending. And so, just as his old friend Hervey complained of the reductions in the army, parliament now resented ‘ship money’. It was no longer an insurance policy – keeping the wooden walls in good repair; it was like paying a chimney tax in high summer. He huffed. Well, there would be a brig or some such in Codrington’s squadron by which Rebecca and the women could be conveyed to Malta; and with any luck it might be done within a day, everything ordered in a proper seamanlike fashion, so that Rupert might take her proper place, flying blue from the foremast, at the van of the squadron.

Asia was hove to in the lightest of airs, and the midshipman steered Peto’s launch to windward, the larboard side. Peto was visiting without ceremony, and it made not a deal of difference by which entry port he came aboard. Using the weather to bring and fasten the boat alongside the more securely was exactly as he himself would have done: he would certainly appreciate it when it came to reaching for the ladder.

‘Easy, oars!’

The launch’s crew stopped pulling.

‘Boat your oars!’

Inboard they came.

‘Up!’

Up they went smartly; the midshipman put the tiller a fraction more to larboard and brought the launch scraping gently amidships. One of the crew seized the lower step, and the launch fastened limpet-like to Asia’s side.

Peto was on his feet in a trice, reaching confidently for the steps – narrow, weed-tangled, wooden rungs, all that stood between a dignified boarding and a watery one. The weed was cold as well as slimy. He knew to expect it; he had done it so many times, the climb was without trepidation. The trick was to think of nothing but what hands and feet were doing, step by step, rung by rung, until he got hold of the ropes – and even then to think only of climbing, without looking up, and not of the reception which awaited him.

Two mates reached out to support him into the entry port, the boatswain’s pipes twittered, Peto adjusted his hat, saluted the quarterdeck, and with a few expressions of ‘good morning, gentlemen’, followed the first lieutenant to the apartment of Sir Edward Codrington, Vice Admiral of the Blue, Commander-in-chief Mediterranean Station.

‘My dear Sir Laughton, I am much gladdened by your arrival!’

The admiral greeted him with a ready smile and a hearty handshake. Sir Edward Codrington was tall – by several inches over Peto – almost bald, and with a noble, humane face which quite belied his reputation for pugnacity in action. Peto was at once assured of his welcome. It had been many years since they had last met, and in the navy these things mattered. Since Nelson’s day – even before – an admiral gathered his favourites about him, men he could trust to place themselves to advantage in battle, or to know what would be his will in some affair conducted beyond sight of the fleet. He, Peto, had never been one of Codrington’s men. ‘Sir Edward, I’m honoured to join your flag.’

‘Then join me too in a glass of Marsala,’ was the easy response. ‘Sit you down. You are come most carefully upon your hour.’

Peto sat as the steward poured. ‘We are come later than I had wished, Sir Edward, for we were obliged to run down into Surt before a storm as violent as any I saw here. I thought I should be blown to Alexandria.’

Codrington raised a hand to say that it was the way of things. ‘No matter. You are here now. Tomorrow I shall have my captains come aboard and I shall tell you my design.’

‘Ay-ay, Sir Edward. But if I may, there is a pressing matter. Your daughter, Miss Rebecca, is aboard my ship. She and her maid joined at Gibraltar, but since I was obliged to run south of Malta I was not able to transfer her to shore, and neither have I encountered any vessel since to which I could entrust her.’

The admiral looked as if he had not heard quite right. ‘The deucedest thing!’

‘She occupies your apartment, of course, Sir Edward. I wondered when you might have a sloop or other to take her to Malta. And when you yourself wish to transfer your flag.’ Peto omitted to mention the other women on board: that was a detail best not troubled over now. He would simply put them aboard whatever it was the admiral detached for the duty, and no one but her master need be the wiser.

The admiral still looked distant. ‘The deucedest thing indeed, for her youngest brother is midshipman with me. He stands watch as we speak. I shall send him back with you, and then, if you will, in an hour or so you may send him back in turn.’

‘Sir Edward.’

‘And Firefly will be returned tomorrow – she’s taking instructions to General Church the other side of the Morea – and then she can take Rebecca to Malta along with my despatches.’

Peto nodded. ‘And your flag, Sir Edward?’

The admiral shook his head. ‘I intend no change – not at this late hour. You’ll see my method when I have the rest of the captains aboard tomorrow.’

‘Ay-ay, sir,’ replied Peto, trying not to sound too dismayed. ‘Shall you come aboard Rupert to see Miss Rebecca before then?’

The admiral shook his head again, and with something of a look which said that he was surprised. Not many months ago Peto himself would have scorned it, but now he was discomfited by the notion that Sir Edward Codrington could reject the opportunity of seeing a daughter – especially a daughter with such evident intelligence, and pride in her father. ‘She will be vastly disappointed, Sir Edward.’

The admiral’s mouth fell open. ‘I do not doubt it, Sir Laughton. But I fear I cannot oblige her. We are about to undertake a most delicate manoeuvre at Navarin. One, indeed, which is likely to have no other outcome but a fierce exchange of shot. I cannot go calling on a daughter!’

Peto felt himself thoroughly chastened, but by no means abashed. ‘I could send her to you in my launch, Sir Edward. Midshipman Codrington might escort her.’

The admiral now looked faintly indignant. ‘My dear Captain Peto, I cannot disrupt a ship of war at such a time. And I have Admiral de Rigny to attend to.’

Peto saw perfectly well that having to deal with a French admiral was vexation enough without the distraction of petticoats. He concluded that he could not press his commander-in-chief further on the matter. Rebecca would, after all, be seeing her brother. ‘Then I must beg pardon, Sir Edward.’

‘There is no cause to do so, I assure you, Sir Laughton. My daughter is well, I trust?’

Peto smiled a shade wryly. ‘She is very well indeed, Sir Edward. I believe she was almost glad to be blown south of Malta, for she expresses a great desire to see your squadron.’

The admiral nodded. ‘She has spirit, but I am afraid I am unable to oblige her in that too, for I must have Rupert stand out well to the west. I do not wish the Turks see her before it is opportune. I shall explain my purpose tomorrow when the other captains are assembled.’

Peto noted for the first time a certain heaviness in the admiral’s manner of expression. It could not have been anxiety for the outcome of any exchange of fire (there could be no doubt of the superiority of the Royal Navy’s gunnery, nor indeed that of the French and the Russians, compared with the Turks and Egyptians), and he was therefore inclined to ascribe it to the uncertainty of the undertaking as a whole. From what he had learned before he sailed, Codrington’s instructions were damnably equivocal.

‘By your leave, then, Sir Edward, I will call on my old friend your flag captain and then rejoin my ship.’

They had no conversation in the launch. Peto wrapped his boatcloak round himself against the freshening