A Sloop of War Read online

  ‘Yes, sir, it very much would,’ replied Clay, trying and failing to keep a look of nonchalant gravity on his face, as if promotion combined with the offer of his first command on the same day was a normal occurrence.

  ‘Excellent, I will get the relevant orders drawn up,’ continued Caldwell. ‘Parker will doubtless have some followers he will want to take with him from the Rush. One is sure to be the ship’s only lieutenant, who I know to be a great friend of his. Are there any men you would want to transfer across with you?’

  ‘I would be grateful if I could have my particular friend John Sutton as my lieutenant on the Rush. He is currently third lieutenant on the Agrius, and my servant Yates,’ said Clay, after a moment’s thought. John Sutton was his best friend, and an excellent officer. ‘There may be a few others who will want to volunteer to come with me. Would it be best if I resolved the particulars directly with Captain Parker?’ He would like to have some other familiar faces with him in his new command, but the compliment of a sloop was tiny when compared with the Agrius.

  ‘Yes, I can agree to that. I will give you a few days to settle into your new command, and then I will need you at sea. I am cruelly short of handy little sloops like the Rush for blockade work, and these French Islands are thick with inlets and little ports to watch. But for now you must attend to your own health. You do look as if you stand in want of much needed rest. Get some tonight, and be prepared to take command of your new ship in the morning, Clay,’ concluded the admiral, as he shook his hand in farewell.

  *****

  Two days later William Munro and James Fleming returned to the frigate Agrius, arm in arm with each other. It was long after midnight, and both men were contentedly drunk, having spent the evening celebrating the promotion of their former first lieutenant Alexander Clay, and the departure of their friend John Sutton to be his sole lieutenant aboard the Rush. Munro was the taller of the two men. He was an Ulsterman, with a fine head of red hair that sadly clashed with the magnificent scarlet of his marine lieutenant’s uniform. His pale complexion was all the paler as a result of the blood he had lost from a nasty head wound sustained in the ship’s recent victory. The wound’s dressing, however, served to give him a dashing, piratical air as it swept around his head and down low over one eye. Fleming was a less imposing figure. A sandy-haired Scotsman, he was the purser of the Agrius, and had spent the battle below the waterline in the cramped little cockpit helping the surgeon to treat the wounded.

  ‘It seemed strange to hear the general discourse on our triumph over the Courageuse tonight,’ said Fleming, as they made their way towards the wardroom. ‘It felt as if I was not present at the battle at all. You all had such engaging tales to tell of broadsides fired, and manoeuvres performed, but for me the engagement largely consisted of sitting in the gloom of the cockpit holding down yet another poor wretch while Wynn removed one of their limbs.’ He shuddered for a moment as he recalled the horror of what he had witnessed that day

  ‘You were very busy at times, I collect?’ asked Munro.

  ‘Ha! Busy you say?’ said the purser. ‘At the hottest part of the action the wounded were being stacked like logs as they waited treatment.’

  ‘But were you truly not aware of the battle at all,’ asked the marine, ‘apart from by the flow of your patients, that is?’

  ‘We were conscious of the roar of the cannon above our heads for sure,’ said the purser. ‘And naturally we felt the shock of the enemy’s fire coming home through the timbers of the ship, but as for if this was for good or ill, we had very little idea. The flow of wounded made it clear that the affair was a particularly savage one, but the fall of the mizzen mast, for example, quite passed me by. It was only when I eventually came back on deck many hours later that I noticed it was absent.’

  ‘How very strange,’ said Munro, as he held the door of the wardroom open for his friend.

  The cabin was almost wholly dark when the men entered it. A single horn lantern swung on a hook next to where the butt of the destroyed mizzen mast still ran through the centre of the table and up into the captain’s cabin above their heads. The lantern’s shutters were closed, allowing only a few rays of light to escape and illuminate the lines of officers’ cabins that ran down each side of the wardroom.

  ‘What a sad, quiet place this is now, William,’ said Fleming. ‘Not so long ago we were a community of seven in this very room.’

  ‘Well, Booth may perhaps return from his sick bed ashore, although he was sore injured in the battle,’ said Munro. ‘But Wynn will definitely be back, once he can do no more to help the injured in the hospital, and of course our former first and third lieutenants who have abandoned us for this saucy little sloop of theirs will doubtless be replaced. Which only leaves you, me and our gallant second lieutenant.’

  ‘And here he is,’ whispered the purser, opening the shutters on the lantern. ‘Nicholas Windham himself, in all his pomp, asleep like a lamb amongst the clover.’ Both men stood looking at the slumped form of Windham. He was seated at the end of the wardroom table, asleep on his arms with a half empty bottle at his elbow. As the light fell on him, he stirred, his head dropped from his arm, and he jerked awake.

  ‘Ah, the carouser’s make their happy return,’ he said without a smile for them. He pushed himself upright and blinked in the light as he got his bearings. His dark hair was tousled, his soft young face marked with red where the buttons of his uniform cuff had pressed into one cheek.

  ‘Indeed we have,’ replied Munro, taking a seat near to Windham. ‘You should have been there, Nicholas.’

  ‘The loss of my uncle is yet too raw for me to be able to take much joy in conviviality. I would have been but indifferent company, William,’ said Windham. ‘I trust you made my excuses to the rest of the party?’

  ‘Rest assured that I did,’ replied Munro. ‘But you did miss a most pleasant gathering. In addition to our former shipmates, some of the Rush’s officers came too. Regrettably the swab in question was absent from Alex’s shoulder, a local tailor having yet to finish attaching it to his new coat, but we certainly wetted it most thoroughly, with a bumper too.’

  ‘Aye, that we most certainly did,’ agreed Fleming. ‘One of the Rush’s officers, a tolerable fellow named Linfield, introduced us to a most capital acquaintance. He was a sugar planter by the name of Robertson, a fellow Scot of course. We celebrated in a tavern called the Morro Castle, and he very handsomely collected our bill for the evening to express his thanks for our glorious victory over the French.’

  ‘A glorious victory, was it?’ said Windham. ‘And hasn’t our first lieutenant covered himself with glory as a result? My uncle barely a week in his grave, and Clay has been promoted and assigned his own ship. One doesn’t need to look very far to see who has gained the most through all of this.’

  ‘Oh come now, Nicholas,’ laughed Munro. ‘You are hardly in a position to complain about that. Your uncle used his influence and connections to see you promoted to lieutenant when you were but nineteen years old!’

  ‘Well that may be so,’ said Windham. ‘But it is the last preferment I shall get from him. Now he is no more I must shift for myself.’ He sloshed some of the rum from the bottle into three glasses, and took a long pull from his own.

  ‘None more for me, I thank you,’ said Fleming. He left his rum in its glass and rose from the table. ‘I am for my bed. I meet with our new captain tomorrow at two bells in the forenoon watch, and would not have him think of me only as a drunken sot. I bid you both a good night.’ Fleming made his unsteady way over to his cabin.

  ‘You might take a leaf from his book, Nicholas,’ said the marine, pointing his glass towards the purser’s back. ‘We shall find matters under Captain Parker will be a good deal tougher. The officers of the Rush were saying that he is a hard taskmaster.’

  ‘Brilliant!’ spluttered Windham. ‘So Clay and Sutton are away on their cursed sloop of war, while I find my dear uncle is to be replaced by some bloody tartar.’


  ‘Come on, Nicholas,’ urged Munro. ‘You do Alex an injustice. I do sympathise with your loss, but I fail to see any connection between that and his promotion. You know as well as I that it is the custom in the service to promote the first lieutenant after a single ship action. He would have got his step whether your uncle lived or not.’

  ‘Oh is that what you believe?’ sneered Windham. ‘My uncle shared much with me you know. What if I was to tell you that I know he had resolved to break Clay when we arrived here in Barbados? I believe that Clay knew it too. And had it not been for his death, your friend would have been on the beach by now.’

  ‘But why,’ protested Munro. ‘Clay was an excellent first lieutenant, why would Follett want him broke?’ Windham turned his bloodshot eyes on the Ulsterman, pointing towards him with a swaying glass of rum but instead of answering the question, he posed another.

  ‘How did my uncle come to die, William?’ he asked.

  ‘Come, come, Nicholas,’ said Munro. ‘We have been over this already. He was swept into the sea when the mizzen mast fell, that is all.’

  ‘Please, indulge me with the particulars,’ persisted Windham. ‘I was down on the main deck with the guns when it happened, so I have only the vaguest of reports to go on.’

  ‘Oh, very well,’ said Munro. ‘It was at the hottest part of the action, when matters were not going well. It is hard to relate exactly what occurred, for the quarterdeck was thick with gun smoke. Booth had been taken below sometime earlier. I recall that Lieutenant Sutton was stood by the wheel, the captain was over by the rail, looking across at the French ship. We were hit by another broadside, and one of the shots must have struck the mast a few feet above the deck. The whole mizzen came down, and the quarterdeck was smothered with debris, including the block that lay me low.’ Munro indicated the bandage on his head. The wound seemed to throb under its dressing in sympathy with his memory.

  ‘When I at last regained my senses I perceived that the mast was down and trailed over the side. The line of its fall was almost directly where your uncle had been standing earlier,’ he continued. ‘The afterguard were all engaged in cutting at the shrouds to free the ship of the wreckage. I remember Lieutenant Clay had appeared from somewhere, and was talking to Sutton, near where your uncle had been. Mr Knight then came running up from the bows with his men to aid the effort to free us of the last of the wrecked mast, after which Lieutenant Clay took command of the ship. I hope that gives you some comfort, Nicholas, but it is truly all I know.’

  ‘Does it all not strike you as very convenient, William?’ asked Windham. ‘The mast comes down. Smoke and confusion is everywhere. My uncle goes over the side, and Clay and his close friend Sutton are there at the scene, the two men who have gained most through all this.’

  ‘Have a care what you are saying, Nicholas,’ warned Munro. ‘I understand you to be upset by your loss, but you are bound for very dangerous waters here. I was there on the quarterdeck, and I discerned nothing wrong.’

  ‘But you were out of your senses for much of the time,’ said Windham. ‘What if the deed took place then? I can still remember when I first learned of my uncle’s death. It was Clay who told me. I remember quite distinctly how he spoke to me, how awkward and distracted his manner was. I have reflected on it since, and am convinced he did not speak like a man with nothing on his mind.’

  ‘Nicholas, see sense,’ urged Munro. ‘He spoke in the heat of battle. Naturally he had much on his mind, not least how to avoid defeat at the hands of a superior opponent. Think man! The quarterdeck was crowded with people, none of whom saw anything wrong. You were not even there.’

  ‘I know what I saw in Clay’s eyes that day, William, and it was not the look of a guiltless man,’ replied Windham. ‘No, I am resolved to get to the bottom of this, if only for the sake of my uncle. I shall not let it pass.’

  ‘Well, you must do as you see fit, Nicholas,’ replied the marine, getting up from the table and stretching his arms out as he yawned. ‘I truly don’t think it will answer, but in any event I must go to my bed. I should have turned in when Fleming did. He will be asleep by now, the dog. I would urge you to do the same.’

  But Munro was wrong about James Fleming, for he was not yet asleep. In the dark of his cabin he mouthed a silent prayer as he lay in his cot, asking to be spared from any more of the dreams that he had had each night since the day of the battle. Before sleep took him, he ran his hands over his arms and legs, trying to show his mind he was uninjured. Perhaps tonight, for the first time, he would not wake up convinced that each of his limbs ended in a bleeding stump.

  *****

  Lieutenant John Sutton stretched out his legs in the back of the carriage and looked across at his commanding officer as he adjusted the unfamiliar gold epaulet on his left shoulder. Sutton was a pleasant looking young man, of medium build with dark eyes and hair, and was a year younger than his friend. He nudged Jacob Linfield, the third occupant of the carriage who sat next to him, and drew his attention to Clay. Clay noticed the gesture, and left his epaulet alone.

  ‘I daresay I shall become accustomed to it in time, but for now I am quite conscious of the extra weight on one side,’ said Clay, by way of excuse. ‘Perhaps I shall even things up and purchase one of those parrots they sell in Bridgetown market to sit upon the other shoulder.’ Both his companions laughed at this. Sutton for the shared pleasure in his friend’s promotion, Linfield because he did not yet know the Rush’s new commander well, and thought it prudent to laugh at his superior’s jokes.

  ‘My, what a whirl these last three days have been,’ sighed Clay. ‘You have no notion how difficult it is to take over a new ship, and prepare her for sea in such a short time, Mr Linfield. The habits of a settled crew to understand, a fresh group of petty and warrant officers to become familiar with, and all this on top of revictualling a ship with which both Mr Sutton and myself are wholly unfamiliar. That we have got there at last seems little short of miraculous.’

  ‘I must confess there were occasions when I did despair of our being ready on time, sir,’ added Sutton. ‘Yet here we are, ready to depart at dawn and with a free last evening to spare.’

  ‘We sail to St Lucia, I collect, sir?’ asked the surgeon.

  ‘Indeed, to blockade one of the smaller ports,’ replied Clay. ‘A place called Micoud, on the east coast. Admiral Caldwell is busy sending out most of the squadron. He wants nothing to be permitted to go to or come from the island, while he prepares for his invasion. Has the Rush been to those waters before?’

  ‘Not since I have been with the ship,’ replied Linfield. ‘Under Captain Parker we have chiefly been employed patrolling the waters close to Martinique.’

  ‘Now, Mr Sutton,’ said Clay, leaning forward. ‘I do not propose to discuss matters pertaining to the Rush for all of this evening, but before we arrive at our destination it has just come to mind that you have yet to tell me which members of the crew of the Agrius have followed us onto our new ship?’

  ‘Apart from his first lieutenant, Captain Parker wanted to take both of his midshipmen with him,’ replied Sutton. ‘I have persuaded Mr Preston and Mr Croft to come across to the Rush in exchange.’

  ‘A sound choice,’ said Clay. ‘They both have much to learn, but I believe we may make tolerably good officers of them, particularly Preston. How old are they now?’

  ‘Both seventeen, sir,’ said Sutton. ‘They are but a little older than you and I were when we joined the midshipman’s berth on the old Marlborough.’

  ‘I hope they may enjoy happier surroundings then we did in that ship,’ said Clay, shivering at the recollection. ‘Did any of the hands volunteer to join us?’

  ‘Plenty, sir,’ replied Sutton. ‘Unfortunately there were only four from the Rush who wanted to transfer the other way to serve with Captain Parker. He seems to have a reputation as a harsh disciplinarian.’

  ‘Who did you fill those spaces with?’ asked Clay.

  ‘The best four
I could find, all from the same mess in the larboard watch. Sean O’Malley, Sam Evans, Joshua Rosso and Adam Trevan. Rosso originally volunteered, on condition the others came too.’

  ‘Did he now? That is interesting,’ said Clay. He considered for a moment telling his lieutenant that on the Agrius, he had discovered that Rosso had embezzled funds from a previous employer. Rosso was an excellent seaman, and as many of the crew had criminal pasts, he had decided to turn a blind eye. No, he thought, the fewer that knew that the better.

  ‘An excellent choice, Mr Sutton,’ said Clay. ‘Although O’Malley is something of a hot-head, and I am not sure how we will fit Evans into the Rush. Wait till you see him, Mr Linfield, he was quite the largest man on the Agrius. Why he must be all of six foot six and a good two hundred and forty pounds.’

  ‘Goodness,’ said Linfield. ‘He will find the headroom on the lower deck a challenge.’

  ‘Now for the less good news,’ continued Sutton. ‘I am afraid that I could not persuade Captain Parker to allow Lloyd to be your steward. Apparently his reputation as a cook has reached even here. Hart volunteered to take the post, and with a lack of alternatives I was forced to accept him.’ Clay groaned. He had hoped to escape from the Agrius’s ill tempered wardroom steward at last.

  ‘Oh well,’ he said with resignation, ‘at least the post is filled.’ He turned next to the Rush’s surgeon. ‘Now, Mr Linfield, we have just time for you to tell us a little about our host for tonight. Apart from the very civil way that Mr Robertson funded the wetting of my swab the other evening at the Morro Castle, I know very little about him.’