Man Of War

‘I shall ask the master too, for it was he who worked the greater part these past three days.’ He cleared his throat again. ‘And one or two of the midshipmen.’

‘I shall look forward to it, Captain Peto. And now may I ask a particular favour?’

He smiled indulgently. ‘Indeed you may, and I shall be pleased to grant it if it is in my power.’

‘I should like to go below and see how are the women. I should have so liked to go before, but your orders were most explicit, and the sentry always looked very fierce.’

He found himself colouring slightly at the tease. ‘I am very glad to hear that my marines are capable of confining a vice admiral’s daughter; it gives me great confidence they will do their duty against the Turk.’

Rebecca smiled, acknowledging the teasing on both sides. ‘So I may go below, Captain?’

Peto sighed. ‘Miss Rebecca, some of the women are . . . how may I say it? Of not good character. I believe I owe it to your father, and your mother—’

‘Some I know are of easy virtue, Captain Peto, but they will likely have suffered the same as the virtuous.’

He reddened very decidedly, and cleared his throat noisily. ‘In that case, Miss Codrington – and you are of course right – I shall be content for you to visit the orlop . . . briefly. I shall have a lieutenant accompany you.’ He looked at his watch, though he did not need to know the time. ‘And if you will excuse me now, I must consult my charts.’ He touched his hat. ‘Until dinner, then, Miss Codrington.’

After a quarter of an hour in his cabin with charts and the sailing-master, Peto settled into his Madeira chair and felt in the left pocket for the papers placed there by his clerk. There were not many, and the briefest perusal told him that they could wait. Such procrastination was not his usual practice: he had ever been raised on the imperative of dealing promptly with any matter placed before him – certainly to do the work of the day in the day – but the work of the previous three days had been essentially on the quarterdeck; and, in any case, his clerk had scarcely been able to make an entry in the ledgers, so violent had the ship’s motion been. He had, too, a letter of his own to write, and if he delayed it at all he risked missing an opportunity, for they might at any moment, now that the storm was blown out, see a man-of-war or a merchantman working west for Malta.

He went to his writing table. He knew how he would begin; he had thought it over exhaustively in the long hours on the quarterdeck. He took a sheet of paper, unstopped the inkpot, picked up a pen and wrote My Dearest Elizabeth. Then he put down the pen and stared at the page. He smiled: he had done it! ‘My Dear Miss Hervey’ had been the earlier form (how could it have been other?). But now he knew different; now he was certain he could – must – write exactly as he felt. He picked up the pen again and wrote a flowing narrative of the storm, of how Rupert answered compared with Nisus and Liffey (Liffey, he informed her sadly, was being broken up even as he wrote), of how well pleased he was with his officers and warrant officers, what a spirited girl was the young Miss Rebecca Codrington, and how he was to beat upwind to find a ship to take her off, thence to sail into the Ionian to rendezvous with her father . . .

He wrote as if they were the oldest and easiest of friends. He had never written its like before. But then, as he was about to sign it, he had sudden misgivings. Did he make his true sentiments clear? He took up again where he thought he had finished: