Winds of folly, p.5
Winds of Folly, page 5
Nathan consoled himself with the thought that the firing was unlikely to be coming from the schooner itself, for no privateer would wish to damage a potential prize. Sure enough, as Unicorn came up on the larboard tack, he saw her break away to the south with one of the transports hard on her stern. The crafty fox had snatched her from right under his nose.
For a moment Nathan wondered if he should let her go – one transport out of forty was not such a disaster, and he had no wish to be lured downwind while the two remaining predators resumed their attack. But only for a moment. He was damned if he would let them have even one of his charges. The schooner’s one advantage was sailing into the wind. With the wind behind her she was no match for the Unicorn, especially with a cumbersome transport to slow her down.
So they fell off from the wind again and ran with her, clapping on every sail they could carry, studding sails and all, and within minutes the transport hove to and they saw a boat drop away from her stern, presumably with the prize crew aboard. The schooner paused just long enough to pick them up and then continued her run to the south.
This time Nathan let her go.
They clawed their way back to the convoy, the transport lumbering in their wake, and though they made a cursed slow job of it, there proved to be no compelling need for haste. The privateers had had enough. The two that remained unscathed were hull down on the western horizon and their crippled consorts limping after.
There were cheers from the crew and though Duncan checked them with his usual firmness, they were all looking mighty pleased with themselves. And from the looks they gave him, Nathan could see they were not overly discontented with their Captain. He only wished he could feel the same way about himself.
‘I am going below, Mr Duncan,’ he told the first lieutenant, ‘to see how Dr McLeish is doing with the wounded.’
Chapter Four
The Courtesans
The gunner was dead. He had died without regaining consciousness, the doctor said. Nathan looked down at the body. Clyde had been a big man, even for a gunner, but he seemed to have shrunken somewhat in death. He did not look at peace. Nathan remembered when they were in the Devil’s Jigsaw, off the coast of Louisiana, after the hurricane, when Unicorn was grounded on a mud bank and they had been obliged to haul her off with the help of George Banjo and his fellow slaves. But Nathan had left Clyde aboard to fire one of the bow chasers in the hope of dislodging the keel from the mud. He remembered when the ship slid off and he had dived into the water and swum out to her. He remembered standing there, dripping water on the deck and shouting up to the gunner in the bows, ‘Well done, Mr Clyde! I swear it was your gun that did the trick.’ And Clyde grinning back at him and scratching behind his ear and saying, ‘Aye, sir, I reckon it may’ve helped a bit.’ And for the first time since Nathan had come aboard the Unicorn in the Havana he had felt he had something other than a crew of malcontents under his command. He saw himself so clearly, dripping water on that deck, and grinning away, happy as he would ever be, he thought now, and Clyde grinning back at him. It was scarce eighteen months ago. He seemed so much older now, and the gunner was dead.
He went back up on deck and his officers saw the black look on his face and left him alone at the rail. It was not just the death of Clyde – Christ knows he had lost enough good men since he had come aboard – but it was a mood that invariably took him after an action, whether they had won or lost. He felt drained and depressed. Diminished, too, in a way he could not easily explain, even to himself. As if he had failed to live up to some exalted expectation of himself.
It seemed to him now that the ‘victory’ the crew was celebrating with such evident satisfaction had been a very shabby affair. How could you call it a victory? They had simply beaten off a couple of privateers – merchantmen converted to ships-of-war by the addition of a few piddling guns and issued with a licence to plunder. Where was the glory in that?
He gazed out over the sea to where his vanquished enemies were making their escape. Not so much wolves now as whipped curs, tails between their legs. So how many more men had he killed and maimed today? A dozen? A score? More?
And for what?
When this war began Nathan had not really questioned what he was fighting for. It was just another war against the French, the old enemy. They were always fighting each other, the English and the French – it was what they did. He’d lost count of the times they had fought each other over the last couple of hundred years, or the times during the peace when he had raised a glass with his fellow officers and drunk to ‘the next war and promotion for us all’. Promotion and prize money. That was what you fought for. Later, when he was in Paris and witnessed the Terror at first hand, he had discovered a worthier cause. But then … the Terror ended. The French calmed down a little. Became, if not less excitable, at least less fanatical, less eager to cut off people’s heads. They still called themselves Revolutionists, still refused to restore the monarchy – which was the official, government-authorised reason for fighting them – but Nathan could not find it in his heart to condemn them for that. He supposed that since the start of the war he had moved to the Left, as the French would say. Perhaps it was sharing a prison with Thomas Paine. He had been subverted by his ideas on monarchy and revolution. Though frankly, the more you saw of Tom Paine, in Nathan’s view, the less likely you were to believe a word he said, or wrote. But without being too radical, it seemed to Nathan that the men who now ran France were not much worse than the men who ran Britain. Perhaps not so fastidious. Not so polite. But then you could hardly expect them to be when the crowned heads of Europe were baying for their blood.
And that was another thing. Who were these men in whose cause so many others fought and died? The Hapsburg Emperor, the Kings of Spain and Prussia, the King of Sardinia and Piedmont-Savoy, the King of the Two Sicilies … and their own King George. Nathan had a fondness for King George, what he knew of him. He seemed like a decent enough fellow. Farmer George, people called him. Of course, he was stark, raving mad, by most accounts. Forever trying to mount the Queen’s ladies and making lewd conversation – if that was a sign of madness. Half the court would be in Bedlam if it was. But it didn’t stop at that, apparently. The latest story was that he had jumped out of his coach in St James’s Park and started talking to a tree. When his attendants tried to get him back in the coach he assured them that it was the King of Prussia. Perhaps he was trying to make a point. Perhaps it was a form of political satire. Talking to the King of Prussia was like talking to a tree.
Still, it was not an entirely satisfactory image if you were fighting for the cause of Monarchy against Republicanism. And now the crowned heads were all sending their envoys to Paris in the hopes of making peace. The only ones left in it were mad King George and the Hapsburg Emperor. They said even Billy Pitt wanted to make an end to it, that he was only fighting on in the hopes of making an honourable peace, whatever that was. It probably meant swapping a couple of sugar islands in the Caribbean. We get to keep Saint-Domingue, the French can have Guadeloupe.
Not a great cause to die for. Or kill for. What would God make of it all? Nathan raised his eyes to the masthead, as if he might find Him there, keeping a tally on some eternal abacus. How many was it now? Two hundred men had died in his fight with the Virginie off Cuba, another two or three hundred when he lured the Brutus on to the rocks off Cap Martin. And all those women and children at Quibéron. He may not have killed them himself, but he had been in command at the time; it was his fault. ‘You are nothing more than a band of assassins,’ his mother had said once, speaking of the Navy as a whole. Admittedly she was biased in her opinion, for the British naval blockade had played the devil with her family fortune. But he suspected that God, that old man at the masthead, was more of his mother’s way of thinking than not.
Not that he believed in God any more. Not the God of the Church of England at any rate, and not the God of any Church he had ever heard of. Yet he could not shake off the need to believe in something. Some order in the universe. Nathan was an astronomer by inclination. And he would have been by practice, perhaps, if it had not been for the war. He still occupied much of his leisure time with a study of the night sky. Lying flat on his back in the maintop, wrapped in his boat cloak with his telescope resting in a kind of cat’s cradle he had made so he was not overly troubled by the movement of the ship. Some of his most peaceful moments had been spent like that, gently rocking to the movement of the waves, his ears filled with the creak of rope and tackle, observing the wonders of the universe. There was order there, surely. But was there anybody ordering it? He would have liked to think so. A kind of Divine Clockmaker, not unlike Mr Harrison who had invented the first marine chronometer. A Divine Tinkerer with a pair of glasses perched on the end of His nose and a small screwdriver in His hand, trying to make everything work. Trying to put things right. It was a pleasant thought. But Nathan did not really believe it.
His thoughts turned to more practical considerations. The mole was almost clear of evacuees, with just three or four transports waiting to take off their remaining charges. He could see Inconstant clearly on the far side of the harbour now, still covering the approaches with her guns. But the French were still lying low. There was no sign of them at all in the town, and the guns on the hillside remained silent. The flag of the Grand Duchy still flew from the Fortezza Nuova in the centre of town.
He began to think more cheerily about dinner. They had scarcely resumed their station on the convoy’s flank, however, when his attention was drawn to the approach of Inconstant’s cutter. Nathan half-thought it might be Fremantle again, come to congratulate him on his defence of the convoy, though it would scarcely be in character. But it was not Fremantle. It was something altogether more alarming.
*
‘They are what?’ Nathan addressed the impudent-looking midshipman who commanded the cutter and now stood, hat in hand, on the Unicorn’s quarterdeck.
‘I think that was the word the Captain used, sir. He says they are under the protection of Mr Udny, sir.’
‘They fucking would be,’ said Nathan. He looked down once more into the cutter, scarcely believing the evidence of his own eyes. One of its occupants looked up and waved at him. He vaguely thought he recognised her, but from where?
‘Courtesans?’ he repeated in bemusement.
‘I think it means whores, sir,’ the midshipman confided in a low voice, smirking.
‘I know what it means, sir,’ Nathan rebuked him sternly. ‘But what the devil does he mean by sending them to me?’
‘He says to tell you he is desolate, sir, but—’
‘Desolate, is he?’
‘But he has no room for them aboard Inconstant, owing to having given up his own cabin …’
‘To a family from Florence with four daughters. Yes, I know all about that. But why could he not have them stowed aboard one of the transports?’
‘Well, as to that, sir, he said to tell you that … that …’ The midshipman quailed at the look in Nathan’s eye but continued gamely: ‘He says that they have formed so strong an … an attachment to certain officers of the fleet, sir, that, that they are entitled to be treated as officers’ wives, sir.’
The bare-faced effrontery of this temporarily deprived Nathan of the power of speech. Not that he had any principled objection to the comparison, but that it should come from Fremantle was, he thought, a bit rich.
The midshipman pursued his advantage. ‘And he said to tell you that one of them is Signora Correglia, sir.’
Nathan stared at him. The woman who had waved at him. No wonder she looked familiar. He had dined with her aboard the flagship. Adelaide Correglia was Nelson’s dolly. It was common knowledge that he paid the rent on her apartment in Leghorn and she was frequently to be found in residence aboard the flagship.
Nathan closed his eyes for a moment. Then he sent for the purser.
‘They are what?’ McIvor echoed Nathan’s own initial reaction when informed of the situation. Nathan told him. The purser stared over the side.
‘How many of them are there?’ he enquired finally.
‘I assume, McIvor, you can count as well as I,’ Nathan rebuked him coldly. His normal good humour was beginning to fray a little at the edges. ‘Probably better, given your occupation.’
‘Seven of them?’ McIvor’s tone expressed his rising astonishment and indignation. ‘But where on earth are we going to put them all?’ Nathan kept his counsel. ‘And if I am to draw upon stores to feed them, how am I to account for it in the ledger?’
‘You may enter them as whatever you goddamn like,’ Nathan replied shortly, doubting it a proper subject for the Captain of a King’s ship upon his own quarterdeck. But he could not leave it at that. Nor did he want McIvor making unsuitable entries in the ship’s books. If they were read by the wrong persons there would be hell to pay. The press might get hold of it. Questions might be asked in Parliament. ‘Enter them as supercargo,’ he suggested more reasonably. ‘And you may stow them in my cabin until more appropriate accommodation can be arranged for them.’
‘But they are whores,’ Mr McIvor hissed, in the low but scandalised tones of a Scotsman, a citizen of Edinburgh, provoked beyond his normal reserve.
‘Courtesans,’ Nathan corrected him mildly, though the distinction, as it had been explained to him, was a fine one.
‘But why do they want to leave Leghorn?’ McIvor demanded forcefully.
This question had occurred to Nathan. While it might be considered unpatriotic to confess it publicly, he would have thought there was little to choose between a French Captain of Hussars and an officer in His Britannic Majesty’s Navy. If you were a whore, that is. Or even a courtesan.
‘I am told they have formed certain “attachments” to some of our officers,’ Nathan informed him in a low voice.
But McIvor was still looking mutinous. ‘Now lookee here, McIvor.’ Nathan tried a different tack. ‘This is a delicate matter. Several of these young persons are under the protection of very senior officers on the Navy List. I have entrusted you with their care because I can count on your discretion and your … your diplomacy.’ And also, though he did not say it, because he was the only ship’s officer of any seniority whose dignity could be compromised in this way. ‘I trust you to steer a fine course between Scylla and Charybdis,’ he concluded vaguely. ‘And now if you will excuse me, I have rather more urgent matters to attend to.’
He clapped his eye to the glass and pretended to be observing the French positions above the town. But despite the rigidity of his stance and the gravity of the military situation, his mind remained very much preoccupied with the problem of his new charges. He watched covertly as they came aboard – were helped aboard, in fact, by an outrageous number of the ship’s company, far more than was needed to bring seven fit and healthy young women up a quarter-ladder. But they were a comely crew; there was no getting away from it. A vision in satin and lace. He closed his glass with a sigh. He supposed he must be civil. After all, she was the Commodore’s particular friend and they had dined at the same table.
‘Signora Correglia,’ he enthused, making an elegant bow. ‘Welcome aboard. Delighted to be of service.’
She smiled and gave him her hand, but her eye, he noted, was cold. He had, after all, kept her bobbing about in a small boat for the best part of half an hour.
‘I am so sorry to have kept you waiting,’ he babbled, ‘but as you can imagine, there were certain arrangements to be made. We were not prepared for such … that is, for female company.’ He was blushing himself now, for the female company was making the most of the effect it was having on its exclusively male audience. ‘However, I have made my own cabin available and I trust you will be comfortable there until … until other arrangements can be made for you. My steward will show you below.’
But Signora Correglia apparently had no desire to be shown below. She and her companions distributed themselves about the quarterdeck like visiting royalty, supervising the disposal of their baggage and conversing animatedly with each other in the local dialect.
‘This is intolerable,’ Nathan informed the midshipman from Inconstant. ‘You would think they are embarked upon a pleasure cruise.’
He was further incensed by the amount of baggage they had brought with them. Not only a remarkable number of personal items but a great deal of household furnishings including some Turkish rugs, an extraordinary number of velvet drapes and cushions, several songbirds in elaborate cages and a parrot. And a large unwieldy crate which he was informed by the midshipman contained Signora Correglia’s virginal.
He made another attempt to engage the woman in debate. ‘This is a ship-of-war, Signora,’ he insisted. ‘We might be called upon to fight an action at any time. I beg you to take your party below.’
She rewarded him with another of her dazzling smiles before turning back to her companions. Nathan recalled that on their previous encounters she appeared to have very little command of the English language. He tried again in French, even in what little he knew of Genovese, and finally managed to convey his desire that the ladies should remove themselves from the quarterdeck so he could get on with fighting a war.
They were led below by his steward, Gilbert Gabriel, who showed every appearance of complacency at this new responsibility. After a few minutes he was back.
‘They are asking if I can move out the guns, sir,’ he reported with as straight a face as he could muster, ‘to make more room for their duds.’
Nathan did not dignify this request with a reply.
‘And what about your cot, sir? Shall I have that moved out, or will you be joining them later?’
Nathan rewarded him with an icy glare but Gabriel had been his father’s servant before him and had known him when he was in skirts. The man was impervious to anything short of a kick up the arse, which was not to be undertaken lightly. He had been a highwayman in his youth and retained the murderous demeanour that had proved so useful in his former occupation. He was widely known – with that flair for irony not uncommon on the lower deck of a British ship-of-war – as the Angel Gabriel.
