Man Of War

the circumstances a very great deal to a post-captain’s pride.

Peto opened his orders and read them rapidly. ‘No reply necessary,’ he growled, refolding them. ‘Good luck to you, Mr Robb. You may dismiss.’

Robb looked relieved. ‘Ay-ay, sir. And good luck to your ship too.’ He saluted again, adding cheerfully, ‘We shall next meet in the bay, I imagine, sir.’

Peto nodded, then watched him scuttle down the gangway, recollecting his own youthful, even carefree commands, before resolutely turning inboard.

‘Miss Codrington, ladies,’ he began, gravely but with every appearance of easy confidence, ‘I am obliged to offer you the continuing hospitality of my ship. Mr Corbishley, you are to escort Miss Codrington to the purser’s quarters; and,’ glancing at the boatswain, ‘Mr Mills, have the ladies conducted to the surgeon’s.’ He would have them all safely confined to the orlop deck, below the waterline, but at different quarters: if he could not get Rebecca Codrington off, he could at least keep her from the company of the ship’s women – whose conduct was certain now to be the ruder.

‘Ay-ay, sir.’

He turned once more to Rebecca. ‘Miss Codrington, you will be perfectly safe, no matter what the action on deck.’ Which was without doubt true unless there was a catastrophic explosion. He cleared his throat once more, as if something did genuinely inhibit what he would say. He bowed. ‘Until . . . until we are anchored at Navarino, then.’

Rebecca curtsied, but before she could reply, Peto had turned.

‘Make sail!’ he boomed, striding for the companion ladder as if with no thought in his mind but to close with the Turk.

XVII

THE UNTOWARD EVENT

A quarter of an hour later

‘Full and by, Mr Lambe.’

‘Ay-ay, sir,’ replied the lieutenant. ‘Full and by, Mr Veitch.’

‘Full and by, ay-ay, sir!’ replied the quartermaster, through teeth clenched on unlit pipe.

With a full course set, and studding-sails low and aloft, he would have his work cut out.

‘Very well, Mr Lambe, the admiral’s orders . . .’ Peto turned and advanced to the weather rail, more symbolic of privacy, now, with so many men at the quarterdeck guns. ‘Codrington intends entering the bay, Asia leading, then the French and after them the Russians. You will recall that the Turks – and when I say Turks I mean also the Egyptians – are drawn up in a horseshoe.’

Lambe nodded.

‘The fleet will anchor alongside the Turks exactly as I described. As you perceive, Codrington no longer wishes Rupert to stand off but to take station in the entrance to the bay to suppress the shore batteries on either side if they open fire. I can only conclude thereby that he believes it will assuredly come to a fight.’

Lambe nodded again, gravely. The entrance to the bay was not a mile wide:Rupert’s guns would play very well with the forts, but any half decent shore battery would have their range with the first shot.

‘Codrington’s advice is that the fort at New Navarin, to starboard, is the stronger. There’s a small, rocky islet to larboard which masks the fort on Sphacteria. If there were time we might first deal with Navarin and then Sphacteria, but I suspect we shall have no choice but to engage both at once, since the admiral will wish to close with the Turkish ships without delay if the forts signal any resistance. There are fireships, too.’

Lambe looked even more grave. ‘A regular powder keg, sir.’

‘Just so. We will take station now behind the flag, with Genoa abaft of us.’

‘Ay-ay, sir.’

Peto put his glass to his eye to see if Asia was signalling anew, but her main-mast halyard bore the same as before. Codrington was evidently standing well out to give the French and Russian squadrons time to catch up before turning for the bay.

The marine sentry struck the half hour – six bells.

‘Very well, Mr Lambe: secure guns, and have the boatswain pipe hands to dinner.’

‘Ay-ay, sir!’

Flowerdew advanced with a silver tray and coffee. There were two cups, as always (except when Rebecca had been on deck, when there were three), in case the captain wished to take his coffee with another. But Peto chose not to be sociable at this moment.

‘Might you procure me an apple?’ Admiral Collingwood had munched on an apple as his line ran in at Trafalgar, a fine tradition of sangfroid in which to follow.

‘They’re a deal wormy,’ Flowerdew protested.

‘Even so.’

Peto took the cup, and extra sugar, stirring it for a minute and more without speaking. He drained it in one, and held it for Flowerdew to refill. ‘And I would have you attend on Miss Codrington in the purser’s quarters. Stay with her until the action is finished.’

He expected the usual protests.

Flowerdew surprised him, however. ‘I was going to ask.’

‘She will need reassurance if it comes to a fight.’

Flowerdew merely nodded.

Peto cleared his throat slightly. ‘Miss Codrington has letters . . . you’ll see to it that she is . . . able to get them away.’

‘I will.’

He cleared his throat again. ‘Good, good. Capital. Now, the apple if you please, and then you will go below.’

‘Ay-ay, sir.’

He would make a little more of it when the apple came – no sentiment or the like, but Flowerdew had been with him a good many years.

Left alone again, he reached into his pocket and took out Elizabeth’s letter (it might be his last opportunity to read it for some time). He unwrapped the oilskin package with a reverence some might accord a relic, and held the folded sheet for several minutes without opening it.

‘Flagship signalling, sir!’ Midshipman Pelham’s voice revealed the pride with which he alerted his captain.

Peto carefully returned the letter to its oilskin, and his pocket, and took out his watch: it was just gone one- thirty after noon. It was a slower affair by far than Trafalgar, but at Trafalgar they could see the enemy, unlike here. Until now, when the bay opened up before them . . .

‘It can be but the one signal, I imagine, Mr Lambe,’ he said (Asia was a mere couple of cables ahead, and with no room to go about even had Codrington wished it).

‘From flag, sir: “prepare for action”!’

Peto quickened as if by an electric shock. ‘Run out all guns, double-shotted, Mr Lambe!’

‘Ay-ay, sir!’

He had drummed hands back to quarters after dinner with ‘Hearts of Oak’. They had stood or crouched by gun and hatch since, awaiting the order. The entire crew now sprang to frenzied life as if they too had been charged