A Man of No Country Read online

  ‘I understand,’ said Clay. He pointed with his glass towards the glittering waters of the bay of Naples and the pine-covered islands out to sea. ‘I can imagine worse places to be laid up, sir.’

  ‘I am sure you can,’ said Nelson. ‘But you misunderstand me. I have no intention of allowing such an active officer as you to remain idle for so long. The Titan can be moved safely enough, I collect?’

  ‘She can sail after a fashion,’ said Clay. ‘But I would not like to answer for her if she was exposed to the rigors of another battle.’

  ‘Good, because after all my pleading to Lord St Vincent for frigates, I find that he is about to bless me with no fewer than four such vessels. I can certainly use them, although it is a pity that I no longer have an enemy fleet to hunt,’ said Nelson. ‘All of which permits me to release you to return home, where the Titan can receive the attention she needs.’

  ‘Home, Sir Horatio?’ repeated Clay. ‘God bless my soul, how unexpected. Are you sure that you have no further need for me?’

  ‘I can always make use of an enterprising officer,’ said Nelson. ‘But that is hardly the point.’ He had a twinkle in his eye again, but for the life of him Clay could not think why. After a moment Nelson exchanged a glance with Lady Emma.

  ‘Do you truly not see what this means?’

  ‘Beyond the fact that I am to be sent home, Sir Horatio?’

  ‘Alexander, I am sending you home with my despatch on the battle,’ said the admiral. ‘I am sensible of the distinction that will come to the bearer of such a document, given the news of the great victory it will contain. You are sure to be rewarded. I imagine you will be presented to the King. It is the principal honour I have to offer to one of my captains, and I want you to have it. Are you not pleased?’

  ‘Excessively so,’ smiled Clay. ‘Sir Horatio, you quite take my breath away. I am truly delighted, both for the honour that you do me, and in truth also at the prospect that I will see my wife again. We have been apart for almost a year now, and before that we had barely spent more than a few months together.’ Lady Emma snorted at this, and the two men broke off to look at her.

  ‘My apologies, I am sure. The pollen in here can be quite overwhelming at times. If you gentlemen will excuse me.’ She rose to her feet and swept from the room.

  ‘You seem to have a, eh, devoted admirer there, Sir Horatio,’ said Clay with care.

  ‘I do, don’t I?’ said the admiral. He smiled after the departing figure. ‘She is so chaste, so pure of thought, so modest. Oh, my dear sir, has the pollen got to you, too? Giuseppe! A glass of water for the captain, he seems to be choking on his drink.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ spluttered Clay. ‘I do not know what can have come over me.’

  ‘No matter,’ said Nelson. He reached across for a heavy looking, sealed package that rested on a small table next to him. ‘You seem to be quite restored now. Here is the despatch. Complete your stores today and sail at first light tomorrow. When you get home, you should ride to London and deliver this into the hands of Lord Spencer himself at the Admiralty. Let no one try and prevent you, for the honour is yours and yours alone. You have earned it.’

  *****

  Later that day, Clay sat at his desk and completed the indents for all the stores that had been taken onboard. It was tedious work to be doing on a hot afternoon. The windows across the back of the stern cabin were all open, which allowed a welcome breeze to drift in and ruffle the front of his shirt. A stronger breath lifted up the pile of papers on his desk for a moment, to reveal Nelson’s despatch underneath. He drew the waxed canvas package towards him and hefted it in his hand. His eyes travelled up from the despatch to the portrait of his wife on the far bulkhead.

  ‘What do you think, Lydia my angel?’ he said. He held the package up for the blue painted eyes to view. ‘Will this truly deliver us some fame and position at last? Perhaps your family might become a little less condescending to me when they hear that I have met with the King? Nelson started life as the son of a rural parson, just like me, you know, and he will be a peer of the realm after this battle.’ The eyes smiled back at him, and he noticed for the first time that one eye brow was arched a little higher than the other.

  ‘You are quite right, my dear, I had forgotten the excellence of his connections. Perhaps if I, too, had been blessed with an uncle who was comptroller of the Navy Board, I might have risen rather more smoothly through the service.’

  He turned the despatch over and felt the crinkle of the stiff paper inside. At one end of the package his sensitive fingers found some hard, round shapes. A few musket balls, he concluded, to make it sink in the event of capture. I would dearly love to know what he has written about me, he thought, and then he opened the top drawer of his desk and placed the envelope inside. He closed and locked it. All in good time, he told himself. First there is something else I would like to have settled. He raised his voice and called towards the cabin door.

  ‘Pass the word for my coxswain,’ he ordered. The sentry outside sent the word on, and he returned to his paperwork. After a few minutes there was a knock at the door.

  ‘Come in,’ said Clay. The marine sentry outside held the door open and a burly figure ducked through it. Clay looked up from his desk and returned his pen to its stand.

  ‘Ah, Sedgwick,’ he said. ‘I sent for you so that I might express my regret for the death of Joshua Rosso. I know he was a good shipmate of yours. He helped you to learn your letters, did he not?’

  ‘Yes, sir, he did,’ said Able. ‘Thank you, sir.’ Clay picked up a sheet of paper from among those on the desk.

  ‘We lost a number of good shipmates in that battle, but few that we shall miss more than Rosso. Did he ever share with you the particulars of his circumstances when he joined the navy?’

  ‘A little, sir. I know how it was all a bit rushed.’

  ‘Indeed, not unlike yourself,’ said Clay. ‘Did you know that your friend’s name was not Rosso at all but Jones, and that he was a fugitive from justice?’

  ‘I did know that, sir, but I am quite taken aback that you should.’ Clay laughed at this.

  ‘You mean you are amazed that Pipe should be so well informed? I found all that out before you came into the service. It was back when I was first lieutenant on the Agrius. A Bristol merchant aboard an East Indiaman we were convoying chanced to see Rosso and thought he recognised him. Later, I tricked Rosso into responding to his true name, during a storm. That is how I found out. I wonder what made him choose the name Rosso, for he certainly was not Italian.’

  ‘He told me it was painted over a shop front he happened to pass on his way down to the docks to volunteer, sir,’ said Sedgwick. ‘He thought that with his dago looks, he might pass for the son of one. It answered well enough, although there were some who wondered why he could no more speak the lingo than they could when we was ashore in Naples.’

  ‘I imagine that might have seemed odd,’ said the captain. ‘How did he cover for his lack of Italian?’

  ‘By telling any that asked that his father came from a quite different part of the country, where the language was much more refined.’

  ‘Did he now?’ chuckled Clay. ‘He was a clever man. I did think to turn him in for a while, but then I reflected on what a good seaman he was. I spoke about him with a brother officer, who pointed out to me how few sailors would be left, if we once resolved to purge our ships of all their former criminals, and so I let matters rest.’

  ‘Sir,’ said Sedgwick, after a pause. ‘May I ask a question?’

  ‘By all means.’

  ‘If by some chance the nature of Rosso’s past had been reported to you, by another seaman for example, what might you have done?’

  ‘I doubt I would have taken any particular action. Remember that I already knew much of it. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Eh, no reason, sir.’ Clay looked at him for a long moment and waited for more, but his coxswain’s face remained impassive.

  ‘I note t
hat the crew seem rather more content of late,’ he said. ‘Does that indicate that you have succeeded in discovering who was behind all the thefts and the murder of young Oates?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I did,’ replied Sedgwick. ‘As it turned out, the same person was responsible for both. They are no longer in a position to harm the crew.’

  ‘I see. Is that because the person fell in our recent battle?’

  ‘That’s right, sir. You committed his body to the deep the day after we licked the Frogs.’ Clay pulled the sheet of casualties across his desk and ran his finger down the list. He stopped at one name and tapped it.

  ‘And the hands know who it was, and are content that he is no longer aboard?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I have spread the word, sir.’

  Clay stood up and walked across to the open windows. Outside the bay Naples slumbered in the hot August sun. A small fishing boat, its hull painted pale green, sailed under the stern of the frigate and the man at the tiller glanced up at him from under his straw hat and waved in friendly fashion.

  ‘I always had my doubts about him,’ he muttered, still looking out into the bay. ‘Perhaps one should never trust a man who is prepared to lie so readily about his past. Mr Taylor tells me that amongst his possessions was found some manner of journal in which he had recorded a long catalogue of revolting acts. I sometimes find myself doubting if he was even truly English. Well, if he did such a wicked thing to young Oates, he deserved his fate.’

  Sedgwick frowned at this, and opened his mouth to correct his captain, but then he stopped. He regarded Clay’s back for a moment, silhouetted against the bright sunlight outside. Perhaps it was better this way. In that moment he decided he would let matters lie, as the captain had once done, when he was a lieutenant, in a storm. After all, it was the last thing that he would be able to do for his friend.

  The End

  Note from the Author

  Historical fiction is a blend of truth and the made up, and this is certainly the case with A Man of No Country, in which I have shamelessly woven my story through the momentous events of 1798. For readers who would like to understand where the boundary between fiction and truth runs, the Titan is fictitious, as are all the characters that make up her crew. That said, I have tried my best to ensure that my descriptions of the frigate and the lives of her crew are as accurate as I am able. Where I have failed to achieve this, any errors are my own.

  One member of her crew requires special mention. This is the Man of No Country himself, John Grainger. While he is my own creation, the extracts from his journal, discovered by Able Sedgwick, are not. I have taken them from one found amongst the personal effects of William Davidson, an able seaman on board HMS Niger. I was first introduced to this remarkable document by an archivist at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London. Davidson claims to have served aboard the Saint Dinnan, a Russian privateer turned pirate in 1788. Apart from a few minor alterations to correct spelling and grammar, and to fit the extracts to my story, I have essentially quoted him verbatim.

  The Charlotte of Bristol, the San Giovanni Battista, the Fleur de Provence, the Saint Dmitry and the Spanish snow captured by the Titan are made up. Other than this, all other ships mentioned were present in the locations and times that I place them. With regard to named characters, the rule of thumb is that major ones are historic, while the minor ones are my own creation. So, for example, in the dinner scene aboard L’Orient at the start of Chapter 14, Lieutenant Mallet is fictitious, but the other named naval officers are genuine. My decision to include so many historical characters in my book comes with a certain amount of trepidation. Trying to imagine how well-loved historical giants such as Nelson and Emma Hamilton spoke and acted is a dangerous business. I have done my best to portray them as I imagine they might have been. If they are very different from the picture you have of them, I hope this has not have spoilt your enjoyment of my novel.

  Nelson’s chase of Napoleon’s fleet the length of the Mediterranean and his subsequent victory at the Battle of the Nile, make a fine backdrop to any work of fiction. My particular account does come at the cost of taking a few liberties with the historical record. The role of persuading Sir John Acton to allow Nelson to base his fleet at Naples, which I co-opted for Clay, rightfully belongs to Thomas Troubridge. I also inserted Clay and the Titan into the battle itself so as to allow them to act as the eyes of the reader. In reality there was no British frigate present that night. The British line was led by Thomas Foley of the Goliath, and it is to him that the credit is due for spotting the French were moored by the bow, prompting him to take the British van around the head of the French fleet. The Culloden did run aground, but this occurred much later in the battle than shown in my account.

  About The Author

  Philip K. Allan

  Philip K. Allan comes from Watford in the United Kingdom. He still lives in Hertfordshire with his wife and his two teenage daughters. He has spent most of his working life to date as a senior manager in the motor industry. It was only in the last few years that he has given that up to concentrate on his novels full time.

  He has a good knowledge of the ships of the 18th century navy, having studied them as part of his history degree at London University, which awoke a lifelong passion for the period. He is a member of the Society for Nautical Research and a keen sailor. He believes the period has unrivalled potential for a writer, stretching from the age of piracy via the voyages of Cook to the battles and campaigns of Nelson.

  From a creative point of view he finds it offers him a wonderful platform for his work. On the one hand there is the strange, claustrophobic wooden world of the period’s ships; and on the other hand there is the boundless freedom to move those ships around the globe wherever the narrative takes them. All these possibilities are fully exploited in the Alexander Clay series of novels.

  His inspiration for the series was to build on the works of novelists like C.S. Forester and in particular Patrick O’Brian. His prose is heavily influenced by O’Brian’s immersive style. He too uses meticulously researched period language and authentic nautical detail to draw the reader into a different world. But the Alexander Clay books also bring something fresh to the genre, with a cast of fully formed lower deck characters with their own back histories and plot lines in addition to the officers. Think Downton Abbey on a ship, with the lower deck as the below stairs servants.

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