Man Of War

Peto himself was less concerned with the crew’s stroke, or for that matter with the admiral who might be watching from the quarterdeck of His Majesty’s Ship Asia. Rather was he intrigued by Asia’s appearance, for he had not seen her like before, except in the Surveyor’s draught. At two cables’ length he was able to observe her very clearly, and what he saw, he had to admit, he did not much like. She had been teak-built three years before at Bombay to a new design, and although in many respects she looked like any other two-decker, she carried ten more guns than the 74, her stern was round, and it positively bristled with chasers. But an ugly stern, thought Peto, with unseamanlike bowed lights, and altogether too brassy a gallery: more like a gin shop, he reckoned. Stronger, though, he had to admit, this rounded framing. And those sternchasers: no impudent frigate could rake her with impunity.

At a cable’s length he lowered his telescope; he did not want to be observed scrutinizing the flagship, as if he were a boy or a landlubber. He did not know Codrington well – he had met him but half a dozen times – although he was unquestionably the better acquainted with him for the company of his youngest daughter these past three weeks. Codrington, however, had been in command of Orion at Trafalgar, when Peto had been a midshipman (passed for lieutenant); they were both, therefore, if not of the brotherhood, then of that dwindling fraternity which admitted none its equal save perhaps that of Waterloo.

Trafalgar: in three days’ time they would be toasting ‘The Immortal Memory’. And he would be proposing it aboard his own ship, a three-decker in the very image of Victory. Except, of course, the admiral would by then have transferred his flag to Rupert, and it would be his to propose the toast. No matter: Codrington was no Nelson, but it would be honour indeed to have his flag fly at the foremast.

Peto sighed. First, of course, there was the little question of Miss Codrington. It was astonishing to him that in a fortnight’s beating up to the Ionian they had encountered not one of His Majesty’s ships, nor even a trustworthy merchantman, to which this precious cargo could be transferred. How different it was from those great and glorious Trafalgar days when a signal might be repeated the length of the Mediterranean with speed and facility. He exaggerated, naturally; it was the way with men of war who had not yet come fully to terms with peace. Except that, to his mind, it was more the case that parliament had not come to terms with the true nature of peace. What said Thucydides? – Peace is but a cessation of hostilities in a war that is never-ending. And so, just as his old friend Hervey complained of the reductions in the army, parliament now resented ‘ship money’. It was no longer an insurance policy – keeping the wooden walls in good repair; it was like paying a chimney tax in high summer. He huffed. Well, there would be a brig or some such in Codrington’s squadron by which Rebecca and the women could be conveyed to Malta; and with any luck it might be done within a day, everything ordered in a proper seamanlike fashion, so that Rupert might take her proper place, flying blue from the foremast, at the van of the squadron.

Asia was hove to in the lightest of airs, and the midshipman steered Peto’s launch to windward, the larboard side. Peto was visiting without ceremony, and it made not a deal of difference by which entry port he came aboard. Using the weather to bring and fasten the boat alongside the more securely was exactly as he himself would have done: he would certainly appreciate it when it came to reaching for the ladder.

‘Easy, oars!’

The launch’s crew stopped pulling.

‘Boat your oars!’

Inboard they came.

‘Up!’

Up they went smartly; the midshipman put the tiller a fraction more to larboard and brought the launch scraping gently amidships. One of the crew seized the lower step, and the launch fastened limpet-like to Asia’s side.

Peto was on his feet in a trice, reaching confidently for the steps – narrow, weed-tangled, wooden rungs, all that stood between a dignified boarding and a watery one. The weed was cold as well as slimy. He knew to expect it; he had done it so many times, the climb was without trepidation. The trick was to think of nothing but what hands and feet were doing, step by step, rung by rung, until he got hold of the ropes – and even then to think only of climbing, without looking up, and not of the reception which awaited him.

Two mates reached out to support him into the entry port, the boatswain’s pipes twittered, Peto adjusted his hat, saluted the quarterdeck, and with a few expressions of ‘good morning, gentlemen’, followed the first lieutenant to the apartment of Sir Edward Codrington, Vice Admiral of the Blue, Commander-in-chief Mediterranean Station.