On the Lee Shore Read online

  ‘I am sure he is, brother,’ she replied. ‘But his stated aim is that he wishes to set down his experiences as a slave with a view to producing a work that may assist the abolitionist movement. He was asking my advice on how he might arrange to have such a tract published.’

  ‘Did he, by Jove! Well, you are very much the expert there, Betsey,’ said Clay. ‘How does your second novel progress?’

  ‘Oh, very ill indeed,’ she sighed. ‘I am dabbling with a little poetry at present, but my publisher is most insistent that I return to composing prose. The Choices of Miss Amelia Grey has sold so well that he wishes me to produce a fresh work soon to place before my public. Which reminds me, I must ask you for some advice.’

  ‘On writing romantic novels!’ exclaimed Clay. ‘I fear my experience is sadly deficient where matters of the heart are concerned.’

  ‘What nonsense, Alex,’ scoffed Betsey. ‘This from the man who has won the heart of the lovely Miss Lydia Browning?’

  ‘Now that is most uncertain,’ he cautioned. ‘Our understanding has never received the sanction of her guardian, and since she has departed to far Bengal, I have no idea when we shall chance to meet again. I have received no replies yet to any of my letters.’

  ‘You will, my dear,’ smiled his sister. ‘She is my friend too, you know. But it was not your intimate knowledge of the fairer sex that I stand in need of. It was your experience of the sea. I must have mentioned to my publisher that you were a naval captain, and he has written to me seeking some advice on behalf of one of his other authors. Now, where did I put his note?’ Betsey scrabbled through the various piles of paper that cluttered the surface of the table, and emerged with the letter.

  ‘Here we are... yes, I have it... one of my authors of poetry, Mr Wordsworth...’ she read.

  ‘Wordsworth?’ said Clay. ‘That’s a deuced appropriate name for a poet.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ said Betsey. ‘It had not really struck me before. He is a notorious radical, you know, but a very accomplished writer. Now, where was I? ... one of my authors of poetry, Mr Wordsworth, has a particular acquaintance who is a fellow writer of some potential. His friend desires to compose a long narrative poem set onboard a ship, but has little direct experience in that quarter. In conversation he confessed that he had been seeking guidance on matters nautical. He struggles in particular with how best to describe the sea in all its variety of states. I recalled that when we last met you informed me that your brother was a captain in the Royal Navy and that he was recovering from his wounds at home... etc. Might you be able to oblige him at all, Alex?’

  ‘How best to describe the sea?’ mused Clay, ‘That is much harder than it has any right to be, for its colour and general appearance alters much, depending on conditions. It is chiefly a mirror for the weather and the sky. Blue of course, but then the blue of the deep ocean is quite different to the blue of the Caribbean. Green in home waters, and grey more often than not, and sometimes even silver. I recall one time on the Agrius when we were becalmed for two days and nights crossing the Atlantic. The sea was so still it was as a sheet of glass. The ship and ocean might have been from a painting, they were both so in want of animation.’

  ‘Why Alex,’ exclaimed Betsey. ‘You are quite the poet yourself when you try. I rather approve of your painted ship upon its painted ocean – I shall pass that image on to Mr Wordsworth’s friend.’

  ‘Oh Alex, do make haste!’ said Mrs Clay as she burst into the room.

  ‘Whatever is the matter, Mother?’ he asked, jumping up from his chair.

  ‘There is a uniformed messenger at the door,’ she gasped, clutching her mop cap to her breast. ‘He has a letter for you that he will only pass into your hands.’ Clay exchanged glances with his sister, and strode out of the room.

  ‘Do you believe it to be orders from the Admiralty?’ asked Betsey. Her mother nodded.

  ‘I could tell from the black wax seal,’ she said. ‘And who else would use such an official person to bring a letter?’

  ‘We have known that this day would come, Mother. It has been a joy to have Alex here with us for these several months, but we always knew that it was not forever.’

  ‘But he almost died the last time he was away!’ wailed Mrs Clay. ‘That shoulder of his is still not right. I cannot begin to picture what I should do if I was to lose my dear boy.’ Betsey rose up from her chair and came across the room to comfort her mother. A little while later Clay walked back into the room, reading the letter as he came.

  ‘Is it orders, Alex?’ asked his sister.

  ‘Yes Betsey,’ he replied. ‘I am to present myself at the Admiralty as soon as may be convenient.’

  ‘Oh, did it say “when convenient”,’ said his mother with relief. ‘That doesn’t sound too urgent. Does that mean you may stay with us a little longer then?’

  ‘I am sorry, Mother, but no,’ he replied. ‘It is just a polite form of words used in such communications. It means straight away, whether it is convenient or not. I had best go and get changed into my uniform.’

  *****

  Sir Charles Middleton, baronet, Admiral of the Blue and senior Naval Lord at the Admiralty, looked up from his desk as his clerk open the door of his office and put his head around the frame.

  ‘Captain Clay is here to see you, Sir Charles,’ he said.

  ‘Ah, capital,’ said Middleton. ‘Do show him in, Fox.’ His clerk swung the door open and then stood to one side to let the officer enter. The naval lord sat back in his chair to study his visitor with care. The young naval captain who walked through was a tall man with a full head of curly hair and matching sideburns. His uniform hung well on his lean, athletic frame, and he regarded Sir Charles with steady grey eyes. He seems pale for a man who has returned from the Caribbean, thought the admiral, and he holds his left arm a little carefully, but otherwise he seems to have made a good recovery.

  ‘Captain Clay, thank you for coming to see me so promptly,’ he said in his gentle mid-Lothian burr. He rose to his feet and extended a hand across his large desk. ‘I am delighted to make your acquaintance. Do please take a seat, I pray. May I offer you some refreshment perhaps?’ Middleton rang a small hand bell on his desk and the clerk returned to the room.

  ‘Some Madeira for the captain and myself, if you please, Fox,’ he ordered over Clay’s shoulder, before sitting down again himself.

  ‘Do I find you in good health, captain?’ he asked. ‘Has your period of convalescence served to quite restore you?’

  ‘Tolerably well, Sir Charles,’ answered Clay. ‘My shoulder is still painful on occasion, and my left arm is a little deficient. I can no longer raise it above my head, for example. I am told by my physician that it is doubtful if I ever will be able to do so again. It means that I will not be able to climb the rigging as I once could. But perhaps now that I am made post that shall not be too excessive a burden.’

  ‘Yes, a musket ball in the shoulder is a most unwelcome visitor,’ agreed the admiral. ‘Have you considered the waters at Bath? Admiral Howe has very decided opinions on their restorative powers for any ailment. Indeed he can barely be persuaded to quit the place, even when he had command of the Channel Fleet and the French were out, what?’ To be polite Clay joined in with his superior’s laughter, until Sir Charles was serious once more.

  ‘So you are ready to return to duty, I collect?’ he asked, gazing across the top of his glass of Madeira at the young captain.

  ‘I am, Sir Charles,’ replied Clay.

  ‘Good, I am delighted to hear it,’ said Middleton. ‘The fact is, captain, I have been very much looking forward to meeting you. I have always regarded Admiral Caldwell to be a man of singular discretion. So when he prefers a man to whom he has no apparent ties of blood or long acquaintance by promoting him twice within twelve months, even Naval Lords may be persuaded to take note. Your defeat of that Don ship of the line, the San Felipe, with such a wee ship as your sloop was a most creditable action, and shows you to be a man of some intelligence as well as dash.’

  ‘That is very kind of you to say so, Sir Charles,’ said Clay. ‘It was not achieved purely by my efforts. I was assisted by Captain Parker and the Agrius.’ He let himself enjoy the praise of such a senior admiral, while deep inside he wondered what unpleasant duty it was that he was being buttered up for.

  ‘Even so, it is rare for a sloop and a frigate to best a ship of the line, I am sure you will agree?’ said the admiral. ‘The fact is that the service stands in some need of officers who display intelligence as well as pluck. We are beset from all sides by enemies, not all of whom lie on the far side of the Channel.’

  ‘Whatever can you mean, Sir Charles?’ asked Clay.

  ‘I mean sedition, treason, mutiny,’ said Middleton, his face grim. ‘Hardly a day goes by when a fresh petition from one ship or another does not cross my desk here at the Admiralty. Some of them complain about inferior vittles, others speak of being denied shore leave, but their principal complaint is of low wages. Are you aware that an ordinary seaman has not seen an increase in his rate of pay since the time of the Stuarts?’

  ‘Can that be right?’ exclaimed his visitor. ‘Why, that would have been over a century ago!’

  ‘I assure you that it is,’ continued the admiral. ‘So you can well imagine that when we press a man off a merchant ship where he will have been enjoying three-fold as much as we shall pay him, and then we hold that paltry amount for months in arrears, it is small wonder that he is inclined to resent the change. You will not have witnessed the effect this can have, serving as you have on a foreign station in smaller vessels with plenty of opportunity for prize money. For the line of battle ships of the main fleet where there is little prospect of such rewards, want of pay breeds great resentment, and it is that sense of injustice that those who would do us wrong feed upon. United Irishmen, Democrats, Jacobins, or any other base ne’er-do-wells who wish their country ill.’

  ‘But if you hold these demands for better pay are warranted, why not accede to their request, Sir Charles?’ asked Clay. ‘Would that not answer to cure the problem?’

  ‘I am quite sensible that many of their claims are just, but where is the money to come from?’ said the admiral, ‘The Board have repeatedly recommended an increase in sailors’ pay, but the government is in the grip such of a financial crisis, and the Admiralty is forever asking for more money. We have a constant need for new ships, better dockyards, more stores – I tell you, bottomless pits aren’t in it. Then to add insult to injury the army had their pay increased not two years ago. I inform you of all this not to alarm you, captain, but so you are aware of the background to the duty I have in mind for you to perform.’

  ‘I understand, Sir Charles, and what, pray, is that duty?’ asked Clay.

  ‘On Monday last I received yet another petition, this time from the crew of the Titan,’ explained Middleton. ‘She is a fine well-found 36-gun frigate that serves as part of Commodore Sir Edward Pellew’s Inshore Squadron blockading the principal French naval base at Brest. She put into Plymouth last week for stores and water, since when her crew have refused to weigh anchor and return to their station. I have the document they sent me here. It takes the form of a round robin, of course, so we have no notion as to which of all these signatures are the leaders of this mischief, but as you will see it is of a rather different character to those I mentioned before.’

  Clay accepted the sheet of paper as it was passed across the desk by the admiral. It was large and rather grubby. Someone with a reasonable hand had written a block of text in the centre, while arranged in rings around the margin were over a hundred signatures. Most had signed with a simple ‘X’ with a notation underneath. Thomas Rodgers, his mark he read under one of the shakier letters. Clay turned the paper round so he could read the writing in the middle.

  To their Right Honorable Lords of the Admiralty

  Sirs, we the loyal crew of His Majesty’s ship Titan most respectfully petition to solicit your help in a grave matter. You should know that we suffer very severely under the ill usage we have received from that tyrant Captain Sheridan which is more than the spirits and hearts of true Britons can bear, for we are born free but now we are slaves. He has punished us most savagely without reason, stopped our allowance of liquor without just cause, and of late has committed crimes worse even than these. During a topsail gale in the Soundings he did unjustly threaten to flog the last man to come down from the foretop yard, causing John Worthy, Able Seaman, to fall to his death which we do all hold is murder.

  We are all resolved that we shall no longer serve under Captain Sheridan, and we humbly submit he be removed from his post and that he be made accountable for his many crimes. Until this should happen we will not weigh anchor nor obey any orders Captain Sheridan shall issue.

  We are all loyal to His Majesty King George, but if any attempt is made to force us to yield we are prepared to resist, and if pressed shall raise the red flag of Mutiny and will sail for France to hand over our ship to the enemy.

  Signed by all the loyal petitioners of the Titan

  ‘So what do you make of it?’ asked Middleton.

  ‘Are any of these names known to be trouble makers, Sir Charles?’ asked Clay.

  ‘There is only one we suspect might be,’ replied Middleton. ‘Richard Sexton. You will find his name on the left hand side, one of the few who is able to sign in full. He was a petty officer until late last year when Captain Sheridan had him reduced to the ranks for drunkenness and insubordination. It would be strange if he did not bear some sort of grudge.’

  ‘There do seem to be a lot of Irish names here, Sir Charles,’ continued Clay, looking up from the petition. ‘Is that significant?’

  ‘The Titan was based in Ireland for some time, so that is perhaps not strange,’ said the admiral. ‘But that may be a factor. The government is having considerable trouble at present with this damned United Irishmen movement, and there has been rebellion afoot on that unfortunate island. England’s woe is Ireland’s chance, as they would have it.’

  ‘Well, Sir Charles, I should say that the principal text shows an author who knows his Thomas Payne,’ said Clay. ‘The part about being born free but now we are slaves might have come directly from the pages of The Rights of Man. But these demands do not seem to be of a radical nature, nor to fit into those disputes about pay and conditions you are wont to receive. I have no knowledge as to the character of Captain Sheridan, but the allegations of the crew appear to be concerned with insupportable treatment at his hands, and a particular allegation concerning the death of this John Worthy. If true I would say that they must warrant an investigation.’

  ‘I see you are very much of my way of thinking,’ said Middleton. ‘I do know a little more about Captain Sheridan than you, and I find little difficulty in believing him to be capable of such actions. That said, he will never swing for murder, as this petition demands. He is far too well connected, and in any instance the allegation is not one that can stand legal scrutiny. It is not as if he pushed this unfortunate man to his death. He has only to say that his threat was just that, a threat, and that he had no intension of carrying it out. Almost any court will conclude that this John Worthy’s fall was an accident.’

  ‘So what do you intend to do, Sir Charles?’ asked Clay.

  ‘I shall relieve Captain Sheridan from his command, and I will replace him with a man I can trust to restore the Titan back to a state of order and discipline,’ said Middleton. ‘It is a task that will require intelligence, for I do not believe that simple force will answer, matters have advanced too far for that now. I also believe that you may well be that man, Captain Clay, and I would be very much obliged if you will take command of this unhappy ship. You can promise the crew that the Board will give them their investigation, but as I have explained it is most doubtful that it will succeed as they have requested. After some months of the proper leadership that I am confident you shall supply, I am sure that this whole matter will be forgot.’

  ‘May I ask what will become of Captain Sheridan, Sir Charles?’ asked Clay.

  ‘He will not command another ship while I serve at the Admiralty, you may be sure of that,’ said Middleton. ‘I have enough problems with all these other petitions to worry over much about captains who do not understand the limits of their authority. In time I may find some duties for him to perform on shore. So am I to take it that you are minded to accept the appointment?’

  ‘I am, Sir Charles,’ said Clay. ‘If we can resolve some of the particulars with regards to followers. Is there any news of my former ship the Rush? She was due to return from the Caribbean shortly.’

  ‘Yes, I believe she docked at Portsmouth two days ago,’ said the admiral. ‘What did you have in mind?’

  ‘It will help me exceedingly if there are at least some among the crew of the Titan who know my worth,’ he explained. ‘Naturally I will have my servants and my coxswain Sedgwick, but I would also like to have four sailors who have volunteered to follow me in the past. I would appreciate it if they could be transferred from the Rush to the Titan.’

  ‘That would seem reasonable, assuming the current commander of the Rush has no objection,’ said Middleton.

  ‘Commander Sutton is my particular friend, Sir Charles, so I am sure he will agree,’ said Clay.

  ‘Yes, especially as I understand that it was you that recommended him for promotion, what?’ smiled the admiral. ‘What else do you believe you will need?’

  ‘A reliable officer I can trust in charge of the Titan’s marines, if you please Sir Charles,’ he said. ‘In case matters turn ugly. May I have Lieutenant Thomas Macpherson as my marine commander? He served under me in the Caribbean and currently commands the detachment on board the Rush.’

  ‘Let Fox have the names on your way out, captain, and I will see that he makes all the arrangements,’ said Middleton, rising to his feet. ‘If that is agreed, I will have your orders sent to you later today. Congratulations on your new command, Captain Clay, and the very best of luck. Be firm but fair with the men, show no fear, and I am sure all shall be resolved.’