On the Lee Shore, page 18
If he had had a better fitting coat to wear, Preston would have cut a good figure. He was an attractive young man of medium height, whose friendly adolescent face was filling quickly into that of an adult. His dark hair and brown eyes had combined well with the tan he had gained serving in the Caribbean last year to give him a dashing, Mediterranean look. It was only when he spoke that his broad Yorkshire accent became apparent.
The Titan had sailed back up the Iroise channel towards the Goulet in order to look into Brest once more, and now lay with her topsails backed close to the entrance to the Rade de Brest. The last of the thick early morning fog that had hampered her progress at first had drifted off in the gentle breeze revealing a fine clear blue sky. There was good visibility now for the two midshipmen at her mastheads to be able to observe the French fleet at anchor as they looked over the intervening low peninsular. Although Preston was the lieutenant whose watch it was, the quarterdeck was full of his fellow officers, which was perhaps why he was so self conscious about the coat. Some, like Macpherson and Corbett the surgeon, were just taking the air before the wardroom’s lunch was served. But others, he felt, were making little attempt to conceal that they were watching him. Warwick the ship’s master was stood near the wheel in a banal conversation with Taylor that did little to conceal either man’s true purpose.
‘I am sure you will have noted how the tide is taking us towards that reef off the larboard beam, Mr Preston,’ called the ship’s master. For once he spoke loud enough to be heard in spite of the volleys of noise that came from the backed topsails.
‘I have the rocks in view, Mr Warwick, but thank you for your concern,’ replied the officer of the watch.
‘Of course the Titan will be much slower to manoeuvre than that handy little sloop you have come from,’ added the first lieutenant. He looked pointedly towards the distant forecastle, over a hundred feet from where they stood.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Preston. ‘I did note as much on the half dozen or so watches I have stood since I joined.’ He looked at the two concerned faces and relented a little. ‘I will put her about just as soon as Mr Butler and Mr Russell have completed their observations.’
‘Ah now, when you do that, you will need to stand to the southward,’ said Warwick. ‘Which shall bring us down towards...’
‘The Courbin reef and the Trepieds,’ completed the young man, ‘Which bear southwest by west two and half miles distant. Rest assured that I did make a thorough study of the chart before I came on duty, Mr Warwick.’
‘Did you indeed, Mr Preston?’ said Clay as he came across from the weather rail where he had been pacing the deck. ‘That was very diligent. And here come our midshipman to report. Kindly put the ship about, if you please.’
Under the gaze of his two nursemaids, Preston picked up his speaking trumpet and gave the sequence of orders to the crew that brought the ship back to the wind and swung her away from the dangers of the lee shore. When he was certain the ship was on the right course, with all her sails drawing correctly, he wandered over to listen to the tail end of the two midshipmen’s reports.
‘Tents, Mr Butler?’ queried Clay. ‘What manner of tents?’
‘Sort of bell shaped ones, sir,’ said the midshipman. ‘There are plenty of them, all set out in rows. They are just out of sight from here, on the other side of the headland from Kerviniou, but you can see them clearly enough from the masthead.’
‘With soldiers moving about too,’ supplemented Midshipman Russell. ‘The smoke from their cooking fires is visible from here, sir.’
Clay looked where he pointed. The long headland of Quelern lay like a low wall between him and the French fleet on the far side. To the north was the gate in that wall, the narrow Goulet with Les Fillettes rocks plumb in the centre of the freeway, and to the south he could see Bertheaume Bay, where they had used fishing boats to cut out the brig in the spring. As usual there was plenty of shipping gathered in the bay waiting for the tide to turn, but it was still being guarded by a large French frigate moored in among them. In front of him a little hamlet of grey buildings lay by the shore, flanked on either side by large gun batteries. Behind the buildings the land rose up towards the crest of some low hills, above which the grey sky was streaked with lines of smoke.
‘Are there many of these tents?’ he asked. Butler consulted his notes.
‘I counted twelve rows, with about twenty tents in each one sir,’ he replied.
‘Any idea how big the tents are?’ asked Clay. Butler shook his head, but Russell was more positive.
‘They were bigger than the men stood near to them,’ he supplemented. ‘Perhaps as much as eight or nine feet high, sir?’ Clay was digesting all this when he spotted Macpherson’s red coat as he strolled past still talking to the surgeon.
‘Mr Macpherson!’ he called. ‘Might I have the benefit of your military knowledge?’ The marine came over and Clay asked the two midshipman to repeat what they had seen.
‘I am familiar with that type of tent, sir,’ Macpherson said. ‘You may recall the Shropshire regiment used similar ones when we were involved in the attack on St Lucia last year. They have a central pole, and a file of eight to ten men will sleep around that, laying on the ground like the spokes of a wheel.’ Clay made a swift calculation.
‘Two hundred and forty tents would shelter between two to two and a half thousand men,’ he said.
‘Aye, sir,’ confirmed Macpherson. ‘That would be a single infantry brigade. They will probably also have an artillery battery.’
‘That’s right, sir,’ said Butler. ‘There was a row of little field guns with horses.’
‘Why in tents?’ mused the captain. ‘All the other troops deployed here about are in huts, or other buildings.’
‘I should say much the same reason that the Shropshires used them in St Lucia, sir,’ said Macpherson. ‘They are temporary. Whatever brigade this may be, I would say that they do not plan to be here over long.’
‘Yes I see, that makes sense. Well, no matter,’ concluded Clay. ‘They are probably little concern of ours then, but I will add them to our report on the French fleet’s strength. You gentlemen can keep an eye on them when you are next observing the fleet.’
‘That will not be for a few days, sir,’ said Warwick, who had been listening from his place by the wheel. ‘With the wind as light as it is we shall have the same fog tomorrow as today, but the tide will be a good forty-five minutes earlier.’
‘Is that fog certain, Mr Warwick?’ queried Clay.
‘Yes sir, or I am no Channel pilot,’ replied the ship’s master. ‘We shall have fog at first light each morning until this wind should strengthen or revert back to a westerly, sir.’
Clay looked at all the coasters hastening from shore battery to shore battery along the coast as they hurried to catch the rising tide.
‘Tell me, gentlemen, am I imagining it or is the costal trade rather more plentiful than of late?’ he asked.
‘I don’t think so, sir,’ replied Warwick. ‘I imagine that some of them have been held back by the fog this morning, and are now hurrying to catch the last of the tide so that it will sweep them up the Goulet and in to Brest. It is that that makes them seem more numerous.’
‘They don’t generally like to move in the fog, then?’ asked Clay.
‘Not if they can avoid it, sir,’ said Warwick. ‘But if these early morning fogs persist they shall be forced to for fear of missing their tide.’ Clay paused for a moment, tapping a hand on the rail, deep in thought.
‘Will they indeed?’ he said, ‘Mr Warwick, will you kindly join me in my cabin for a pot of coffee? You as well, Mr Taylor. I would be obliged if you could also bring the chart and tide table for the next few days with you. I believe you have given me an idea.’
*****
‘Edward,’ said Blake to the wardroom’s newest recruit later that day, ‘may I make an observation?’
‘Of course, John,’ smiled Preston.
‘I truly mean no disrespect, but I could not help but notice that your coat seems a little ill fitting,’ he said. To his relief Preston smiled at him.
‘Is it that obvious?’ he said. ‘That is very provoking. I had hoped that it might have gone unnoticed. I fear its previous owner was the size of an ox. I had intended to have it altered before we left Plymouth, but I ran short of time.’
‘Then I may have a solution for you,’ said his fellow lieutenant. ‘My servant Marway started life as a tailor’s apprentice. Would it answer if I was to ask him to adjust it?’
‘That is very obliging of you,’ said Preston. ‘But what would I wear in the meantime? I only have my full dress uniform, which I can hardly wear for everyday.’ In answer Blake stood up and slipped off his own coat.
‘Try on this one,’ he said. ‘We must be of a similar size, and I have several. I could lend you one with perfect convenience while yours is altered.’
The two men were alone in the wardroom, waiting for their fellow officers to join them for dinner, but as luck would have it Tom Macpherson strode through the door at that moment.
‘Goodness, I could eat a horse,’ he exclaimed, and then stopped in surprise. ‘Pardon my intrusion, but why are you gentlemen exchanging coats?’
‘It is no great matter, Tom,’ said Blake. ‘We are making trial to see if we are the same size. If so I shall lend Edward here my coat while one of his is being worked on by Marway.’
‘I see,’ said the Scot. ‘Would that be the rather large garment you were sporting earlier, Edward? But perhaps you would rather borrow my coat than John’s? It would match the shade of scarlet that your face has turned admirably.’ There was a pause, and then the three young men all roared with laughter.
‘What is it that is so amusing?’ asked the elegantly dressed new purser Charles Faulkner, as he too arrived in the cabin. He was an aristocratic man with coiffed auburn hair. Macpherson explained the joke to his friend, who nodded in approval.
‘Thank goodness you are having that sack taken in at last, Edward,’ he exclaimed, brushing at the sleeve of his own garment, which was perfectly tailored. ‘It has been annoying me for days now.’
‘Well bless my soul,’ said Preston as he flopped down into his chair. ‘So has everyone noticed the size of my coat, then?’
‘I did hear the sail maker mention that it might be of use should the main course be in need of replacing,’ said Corbett the surgeon, emerging from his cabin to renewed laughter.
‘Goodness, you gentlemen are in good cheer,’ beamed Taylor as he too came into the wardroom. ‘What has occasioned such mirth?’
‘Mr Preston’s coat, sir,’ said Blake.
‘Oh yes? Would that be the rather voluminous one?’ asked the first lieutenant.
Once the laughter had subsided and the officers had taken their places, the wardroom steward brought in the evening meal. Soon cheerful conversation ebbed and flowed around the table. Lieutenant Taylor let his food cool a little on his plate, and looked around at his fellow officers with obvious pleasure.
‘You seem in good spirits tonight, Mr Taylor,’ said Corbett, who sat beside him. ‘Has anything in particular occasioned that?’
‘I was just observing to myself what an agreeable young man Mr Blake is,’ he replied. ‘He is making Mr Preston most welcome in the wardroom. It is strange, but I had not really noticed that amiability in his character before.’ The surgeon looked at him and raised an eyebrow.
‘Strange, sir?’ he queried. ‘I believe the reason is quite plain. If you want to understand why our wardroom is so much more pleasant you must consider who is absent, rather than who is present. I do not wish to speak ill of the dead, but it is since Mr Morton’s departure that we are at last beginning to see Mr Blake’s true character.’
‘Do you know, I believe you may have the truth of it,’ said the first lieutenant.
‘Indeed,’ said Corbett. ‘And when you add to that the change in purser, where we have exchanged the sneering Mr Haywood for the thoroughly amiable Mr Faulkner, it is small wonder we are a distinctly happier band.’
‘It is not just the wardroom either, sir,’ said Macpherson, who had been listening from the first lieutenant’s other side. ‘Have you not noted how much more pleasant the atmosphere has become onboard, compared with when I first joined? The removal of most of the men’s grievances, combined with a good long run ashore, has been most advantageous.’
‘Not to the men’s health,’ grumbled the surgeon. ‘The more notorious fornicators amongst them have returned with the inevitable range of maladies for me to treat.’
‘And yet I was quite set against so much liberty,’ said Taylor. ‘Not for the reasons that you allude to, Mr Corbett, grave as they must be, but because I was fully resigned that we should lose one man in three.’
‘How many did run?’ asked Faulkner from across the table.
‘We lost six, all former messmates of either Sexton or Kenny who I am quite content to see the back of,’ he replied. ‘And we gained twelve good hands from the receiving ship in exchange.’
‘Sexton and Kenny? Would they be the two notorious mutineers I have heard of?’ asked Faulkner.
‘Indeed,’ said the first lieutenant. ‘Kenny died of wounds acquired during the suppression of the mutiny, and Sexton is back in Plymouth now, awaiting court martial for the murder of Edmund Morton.’
‘Am I the only one to note that the captain too seems to have been infected by this general lifting of spirits?’ added Corbett. ‘Yes, I will have a little more of the pie, please.’
‘Only a surgeon could classify happiness as a sickness,’ said Faulkner in a stage aside to Macpherson.
‘I believe that is right,’ said Taylor. ‘I hope I am not being indiscrete when I say that he has met with a lady of his acquaintance that he has long been separated from.’
‘If the lady in question is the same who came looking for him aboard the Rush in Portsmouth it is small wonder he is in good spirits,’ said the purser. ‘She was deuced handsome. What did Sutton say her name was, Edward?’
‘Miss Lydia Browning,’ said Preston. ‘He met her when he was the first lieutenant on the Agrius back in ninety-five.’
‘Has a formal understanding been reached between them then, sir?’ asked Macpherson. ‘Should we be offering the captain our felicitations?’
‘That would be a little premature, Tom,’ said the first lieutenant. ‘The lady in question has accepted him, but I believe that when he met her aunt in London she did not immediately endorse the proposed match. She is withholding her blessing till she has had the leisure to make some further enquiries into his character.’
‘Really?’ said the marine. ‘Surely there can be no objection to him in that regard?’
‘You might think not, Tom, but the captain is setting his sights very high,’ said Taylor. ‘This Miss Browning comes from an exceptionally well connected family, I believe.’
‘If it is the Miss Browning who is a ward of the Ashtons then they are a very patrician lot,’ said Faulkner. ‘She will come with quite a fortune. I expect her guardians are concerned to ensure she has not fallen prey to a fortune hunter, in which case there can be no real objection to Captain Clay. With all the prize money he has earned of late he must be tolerably solvent in his own right.’
‘Well, gentlemen,’ said Macpherson, raising his glass. ‘Let us wish him every good fortune in his ambitions with this Miss Browning, with a bumper too, if you please.’ The wardroom rose as one to toast the success of their captain with a roar of approval that echoed through the ship.
*****
‘The Grunters are having a proper fecking roister,’ said O’Malley, as he sat on the forecastle next to his friend Trevan. Most of the hands on watch had looked round when the noisy cheer had echoed up from the wardroom, responding with a buzz of comment, much of it uncomplimentary, but the Cornishman had not been amongst them. Instead he continued to stare out to sea. The Titan was back at the entrance to the Iroise Channel. She whispered along under easy sail in the dying light of the day. Off the starboard bow was the long jagged line of the Pierres Noires reef. The occasional wave slapped up a plume of spray, the foam pink in the light of the setting sun.
‘It’s a grand fecking sight,’ said the Irishman, indicating the reef. ‘None the worse for us having seen it most days this commission. I likes it best of an evening, just as she is now.’
‘It looks well enough,’ murmured his companion. The two men watched as the reef slid by in silence, O’Malley waiting for his friend to say more.
‘Listen, Adam,’ he said at last. ‘You know I’m no good with me words. That’ll be why I am always after fecking cursing. Rosie and even Able do all that much better than me, so I’m just going to go ahead and say it. Would it be your boy you’re thinking on at all?’
‘Aye, it is Sean,’ replied Trevan. ‘I miss him real bad. By rights I shouldn’t, for I barely knew the lad at all. So why I does I can’t rightly fathom, but when he was alive, somehow just knowing he was there, away over yonder horizon with my Molly, was a comfort to me. I could tell myself all the things I would show him one day. Ways how I would make it up to the nipper for all the time I was away, like. Simple stuff that I did served to make him seem closer. Working on a bit of scrimshaw for him of an evening, like that little boat I carved.’
‘Sure you’re after pining for the lad,’ said his friend. ‘It don’t signify any how much time you spent with him. He was still your blood, like.’
