By the Mast Divided (36 page)

‘Do you think that comfrey has soaked long enough?’

Lutyens smiled, seeming to imply that he now knew something that had hitherto been a mystery, then stood, moving towards another locked chest, opened by a large key, from which he extracted a brown stopped bottle. A small measure of the contents was poured into a glass etched with markings, the whole presented to Pearce to drink.

‘A combination of medicine ancient and modern, will set you up famously and, as the captain requested, in short order.’

Pearce sniffed it. ‘Laudanum?’

‘You know the tincture?’

Pearce had dosed his father with laudanum often, to ease the pain of an internal affliction that would respond to no other palliative, just as he knew of people who took it in daily doses. It would make him drowsy, perhaps even senseless, but he also reckoned that it would make him forget the stinging of his back, as well as his present situation. The thought of a degree of oblivion was a welcome one, a period when he would not recall that he was a pressed seaman, nor think of the way he had deserted his father in Paris, of an escape which was, for the present, impossible. Raising himself on one elbow, Pearce threw his head back and downed the contents.

‘Excellent,’ said Lutyens, almost purring with pleasure. ‘Once that has touched upon the vital spirit, for there is nothing like an opiate to bring such a thing to fruition, we can continue our conversation.’

The feeling of relief was immediate, a sensation spreading through his limbs that seemed able to relax each muscle in turn. The cold of the damp comfrey leaves being spread on his bruised back was soothing in itself, but Pearce knew that was not the root cause of his increasing comfort. A delicious numbness worked its way up from his kidneys to his shoulders, through his neck and into his head so that even his jaw seemed altered, though he had not thought it clenched. He could hear Lutyens singing softly, too low for any words to be discernible, yet soothing in the sound. Sleep seemed possible and that happy thought as he closed his eyes, brought a smile to his face. 

‘So, John Pearce,’ Lutyens whispered in his ear, pencil poised over his notebook, ‘what of Plato?’

‘A foolish man, or so my father thought. The Republic is nothing less than a paean to the Spartans, who lived off the back of slavery…’

Lutyens interrupted gently, ‘Your father?’

That produced a frown, as though the question was difficult. After a lengthy pause the reply came. ‘Adam Pearce.’

The surgeon had been holding his breath, fearing he had gone too far too soon. ‘How silly of me. Is he not a friend to Tom Paine the radical pamphleteer?’

‘Friend no, but they share many of the same notions.’

‘What would they be?’

What followed was mumbled and far from coherent. Words were being dredged from Pearce’s mind that were not really his own, but those he had heard from his father’s lips; each person’s right to the fruits of his labours, an end to tithes both feudal and clerical, ramblings on the iniquities of Kings, courts, titles, prelates as well as the hereditary principle, and the manifest failure of those who removed monarchs to make any change to the lot of the common man. Lutyens only half listened, for he had heard it all before, had indeed debated such notions with his friends, as aware as any man that the world in which he existed was riddled with manifest imperfections. But that was not really what interested him, and he happily let his patient ramble only so that he would become comfortable in a confessional state.

It was for moments like this that Charles Lutyens had chosen the Navy and this ship. He knew himself to be over-qualified for such a lowly post, but that mattered not for the position was a means to an end. A surgeon he might be, but his interest lay not in the corporeal human body, with its mess of blood, tendons, tissues and bone, but in the brain, the cerebral part that controlled all those moving parts. He was enough of a student of Voltaire to scoff at any notion that the heart had any dominion over a man’s actions, sure as a rationalist that the head was the seat of all emotion. But it was not a surgical interest – he had trepanned enough cadavers in his training to be bored with the soapy mass of tissue contained in the skull. His fascination went deeper than the knife!

The Sick and Hurt Board of King George’s Navy had not enquired too deeply into his competence or his motives; there was a war on, fleets fitting out and no excess of qualified medical men queuing to serve in the King’s Navy, especially in the smaller vessels. Here was one not only willing but eager, a fellow who had powerful connections, which wended 
though his Lutheran pastor father all the way to a royal family who often worshipped at his church. Lutyens had asked for a frigate because big ships carried too many men for his purpose and were rarely in action. If they did not comprehend the reason for the request, the officials at the Sick and Hurt Board were too grateful for the offer of his services to refuse.

Already he had examined and made notes on those with whom he messed, the members of the wardroom; lieutenants Roscoe, Thrale and Digby in that order of seniority were satisfyingly different, as was the pun-obsessed marine officer, Holbrook. The Purser seemed a slippery cove, almost too true to type, while the Master, Mr Collins, was a worrier. The eight midshipmen and master’s mates who shared the overcrowded midshipman’s berth had eluded him somewhat, but all sorts of skulduggery was going on in that quarter, certainly bullying, perhaps theft, and quite possibly buggery. It was interesting to reflect that every wardroom officer had progressed from what they commonly referred to as ‘that damned filthy bearpit’. Thus he would be given a chance to probe the scars such surroundings created at the same time as he observed the long-term effects on those who had endured them.

The crew he was slowly getting to know – some because of the numerous cases of the pox aboard. Volunteers or the first takings of the Impress Service, men bred to the sea, would repay close study. What made such people volunteer for a duty that was by common repute so harsh? But men such as Pearce were like the philosopher’s stone; fellows forced to serve in the King’s Navy, brought aboard by a system universally condemned, but one that could not be sacrificed when Britain went to war, men who, when it came to the moment, were reputed to fight with as much tenacity as those who had come aboard of their own free will. From the whole he hoped to discern attitudes and motives that would be at the kernel of the investigations he was here to undertake.

Then there was the captain. Was he a mass of contradictions, or just a product of the service that had created him? Lutyens had learnt from those members of the crew with whom he had spoken that they saw nothing abnormal in the way Barclay behaved, though it had been obvious such an opinion had been dented by the flogging of Pearce. Watching intently as the cat swung, he had felt the discontent amongst the crew, men too wise to show it in their faces, for they did not want to join the victim at the grating. There was no doubt in Lutyens’ mind that Barclay was aware of the crew’s displeasure, yet it had no effect on his actions. And finally there were the intricacies of the captain’s marriage – 
a whole other area of enquiry that Lutyens had never anticipated.

By studying men in the enclosed setting of a ship of war, over an extended period, Charles Lutyens hoped to find many things. Could men be classified as type? Was there a measurable index of types? Why did men indulge in acts of cruelty and kindness, often both in the space of a few minutes? Why did they fight? What caused men to follow other mere mortals, for it had to be more than simple rank? What did leaders have that singled them out? He would make an enquiry into motives and actions, putting the whole together in a carefully written study. And perhaps he would acquire fame from passing on his observations on the truth of the human condition as it applied to the fighting seaman. But now, taking up his notebook and finding the passages that related to his present patient, he would, by gentle questioning, get to the truth about John Pearce.

Pearce was still talking as Lutyens read his notes, and in doing so found that he had scribbled more on this man than any other on the ship outside the wardroom; the fact that he had marked him at once as different from the rest of the pressed men, the singular reality of his observation that although older than Pearce he had felt to be a junior in his presence. Lutyens found himself slightly embarrassed to discover that he had described Pearce as attractive, which was surely a misnomer, and he searched for what he had really meant, a word to describe the way Pearce attracted men to him. He scored out attractive and replaced it with forceful. Then he renewed his questioning.

‘Born in?’

‘London.’

‘Mother?’

‘Dead.’

‘Brothers and sisters?’

‘None.’

‘School?’

‘By the score but never for long.’

‘Father?’

‘A good man, but fixated by the lot of his fellow man.’

‘Do you love him?’

‘With all my heart.’

Lutyens saw tears fill the corner of Pearce’s eyes and gentle prodding produced the information that the son felt he had failed his father, deserted him, allowed him to insist on flight for only one, too ready to accept the excuse that he was too ill to travel. That unlocked the thorny
emotions of their relationship: mostly a difference of opinion over the way ideas translated into actions. This exposed another strong influence, the teachings in philosophy, rhetoric and law he had received from his tutor, the Abbé Morlant. His life in Paris had not all been dry study; there had been women too, numerous and varied in age and social station. John Pearce had received schooling in riding and fencing, the paradox being that his levelling father was determined his son would have the attributes of the gentlemen he so despised, his excuse being that he wanted these things for all men.

‘Your honour.’

Lutyens turned to see the sailmaker standing in the doorway, looking at Pearce’s leaf-covered back, a quizzical expression on his face, as the surgeon put a finger to his lips to ensure silence. Simpson held up his manufacture, pale brown canvas of a light texture, shining with the cook’s slush, and with the requisite ties hanging off.

‘You’ll need a hand to get it on, with him being dead weight by the look.’

Pearce was still rambling, fortunately in a voice so low that only an ear close by could pick it up. It was not that Lutyens mistrusted Simpson – he was wary of everyone. But let one word of what he was learning here get out and it would be all over the ship in a trice. And the look in Simpson’s eye, as he looked down on Pearce, was one of deep curiosity, which made Lutyens question if he was the only person aboard who harboured doubts about this patient.

‘Leave it. I will call for help when I need it.’

Simpson looked far from pleased, and even less so when the surgeon came out from his small cabin to ensure that he moved away. Then he went back to sit with John Pearce.

Ralph Barclay had on his desk a drawing of the observations the master had made, showing as notations what they knew regarding the depth of water and what hazards lay in their path in the way of rocks and sandbars. The information Collins had brought back with him only served to underline the folly of trying to take his ship into the estuary.

Thankfully Collins had not observed any preparations for a stout attempt to defend the place – a modicum of activity around the bastion, but nothing to suggest the place was being made ready to repulse an attack. Nothing untoward either aboard the vessels except the comings and goings between ship and shore. Barclay had to believe his enemy reckoned himself secure, so a boat attack under such circumstances 
stood a good chance of success. In a previous commission, with officers he trusted, he would most certainly have invited them to a conference to discuss the raid, that followed by a good dinner in which they would be free to air their opinions. Ralph Barclay could not bring himself to do that now. The plan was his, and his alone. He was, for once, aware of that sense of isolation that afflicted all captains – the obverse side of the privilege bestowed by rank.

It was doubly galling that the one person he should have been able to talk to, not in a tactical sense but merely as a sounding board, he could not. Emily would keep referring, obliquely but doggedly, to the incident that had taken place that morning on deck, and much as he did not wish to discuss the matter he was finally forced to respond – to tell her that in matters of discipline she was not allowed to even comment, never mind disagree. Her statement, that that being the case, she would say ‘nothing at all’, was denied any response by her huffy departure, followed by the immediate entrance of those who would be taking part in the raid.

‘Gentlemen, this will be a cutting out operation with boats.’

Ralph Barclay looked at each face in turn then, and saw nothing, neither approval not divergence of opinion. He had been about to explain his thinking, but such bland acceptance killed off the notion, and he confined himself to outlining the salient points of the defence and how he wished to confound them.

‘Mr Roscoe, your task is to cause a diversion by attacking that bastion, with Mr Thrale in support. I wish you to land where you will not be seen,’ Barclay jabbed at the rough-drawn map, indicating a small promontory on the western shore that would provide a degree of cover for Roscoe to land his men. ‘I have marked the spot here, which will allow you to get ashore unobserved. In the dark you should be able to get right up to the walls without alerting them. I want noise and confusion, our enemies thinking those guns the main object of our endeavour, that by taking the stronghold we intend to use the cannon against the
Mercedes
and render the position untenable, driving them from the anchorage. With luck they will rush to aid its defence. That will render my task of taking the ships easier, for once they depart I can board.’

‘Can the cannon on that bastion be brought to bear on the anchorage?’ asked Roscoe.