Victory Read online

  ‘Bowden, Charles. You’re American, er, Richard?’

  ‘Born ’n’ bred. You’ve seen some service, then?’ he said, eyeing Bowden’s sailorly build.

  ‘Not as who might say. The Nile, Minorca before the peace, the Med in a brig-sloop,’ he admitted, trying not to look open-mouthed at the sheer scale of Victory’s masts and guns.

  ‘The Nile? As I thought. You’re not to berth with the reefers, it’s the gunroom for you, m’ friend. I’ll square it later with the bo’sun.’

  The largest ship Bowden had been in had been the old sixty-four-gun Tenacious, but this was altogether in another dimension. A first-rate, the largest type of battleship in the Navy, it was a floating city, teeming with men, crammed with guns and imbued with the irresistible arrogance of power.

  The gunroom was on the lower deck, occupying the entire after end of the ship under the massive twenty-five-foot tiller. Far more capacious than any Bowden had seen, it was home for the warrant officers, boatswain, gunner and other senior men, together with the master’s mates and privileged senior midshipmen.

  ‘We sling our micks here. The bo’sun and so on have their cabins but we all mess at table in the gunroom.’

  His sea-chest was given to the care of the gunroom servant and Bowden tried to thank his American friend, who brushed it aside. ‘We’ve a right taut ship, Charles, an’ under the eye of His Nibs at any time. Just be sure you measure up.’

  Bowden nodded. ‘I’ve heard Our Nel can be short with those who cross his hawse.’

  ‘And he can be as nice as pie to those who try hard,’ Bulkeley came back instantly. ‘Now, I think it a wise thing right now to make your number with the first luff. This way . . .’

  In his cabin the first lieutenant looked up from his work. ‘Mr Bowden to join, sir. I have him ready berthed in the gunroom. Charles, this is Mr Quilliam.’

  Victory swayed majestically – they must be under way once more. Quilliam efficiently noted details of Bowden’s sea service and pulled down a large and well-creased diagram. ‘Your watch – Mr Pasco, I believe. Station? Shall we say at the main-mast for now. Quarters? Something tells me you’ll relish the lower-deck smashers – only a hop and step from your hammock in the gunroom, I’ll point out.’

  He looked up with a lop-sided smile. ‘The sooner you’ve sheeted in the essentials the better. I rather think the best use of your time at this moment would be for Mr Bulkeley t’ show you the ropes until we need not fear to trip over you.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ Bulkeley said, and the pair left together.

  ‘I rather think this must be one quick tour, Charles. Evening quarters are taken seriously and we don’t want you adrift on your first day. Now, the fo’c’sle . . .’

  Right forward, a hundred feet of bowsprit with its headsails soaring up speared out, the elaborate beakhead just below. The roar and swash of the bow-wave made conversation difficult.

  ‘You’ll never see a main-mast s’ taunt,’ Bulkeley said, pointing up as they passed the tack of the fore-course. It was an awe-inspiring sight, mounting up beyond the fighting tops and cross-trees to the very heavens. ‘Higher even than Westminster Abbey – should you fall afoul of the officer-of-the-watch and find yourself mastheaded.’

  On past the big launches and barge and then Bowden saw a knot of officers on the quarterdeck deep in earnest conversation – and in the centre, unmistakable with his four stars and gold lace, was Lord Nelson.

  They walked by respectfully, Bowden doffing his hat and taking his first look at the most famous admiral in the Royal Navy. There was an immediate impression of crushing care and worry, the lines in his face deep and set, but in the uncompromising quarterdeck brace there was resolute pugnacity.

  ‘We carry nine lootenants,’ Bulkeley said, breaking the spell, ‘and a company of eight hundred and fifty – being short about thirty o’ that.’

  Getting on for a thousand men within the confines of one ship. ‘Er, how many decks does she have?’ Bowden asked, for something to say, as they mounted the poop ladder.

  ‘Well, three gun-decks, o’ course – twelves, twenty-fours and thirty-two-pounders – but if you’re counting there’s seven under us, including the hold platform.’

  He went on to explain the layout of the carronades on the quarterdeck and fo’c’sle, and signal handling on the after end. Moving to the break of the poop, he leaned over to point out Victory’s great double wheel, taller than the men who steered her, and the near fifty-foot sweep of quarterdeck abaft the main-mast.

  Bowden said in wonder, ‘She’s a grand lady, Richard – must be a few years old now?’

  ‘Yes,’ chuckled Bulkeley. ‘Laid down for the Seven Years’ War in ’fifty-nine. Seen a few admirals too since then – Keppel in your American war, poor old Kempenfelt later and, o’ course, Jervis at St Vincent.’

  Bowden blinked. She had started life in a very different age: halfway through the last century, before Captain Cook had charted the unknown regions, before Harrison’s chronometers, before even copper bottoms for warships. And now she was the most famous flagship in the world.

  They went below to discover vast gun-decks, the gloomy orlop and forward, giant bitts for the anchor cable. ‘Twenty-four-inch cables, no less, so at a hundred and fifty pounds in every fathom and a four-ton anchor on the end, pity the capstan crew!’

  Then it was up through the decks once more to the winter sky and dark complexity of rigging. The vast bellying main-course was the largest sail Bowden had ever seen – fully a hundred feet across and with an area on its own much the same as a respectable London townhouse. There were others and more, three masts in a towering pyramid of sea-darkened canvas, urgently drawing.

  ‘Everything’s on quite another scale,’ Bulkeley admitted, ‘and those grand sails are why we have near a thousand ton o’ ballast – that’s the weight of a whole frigate in our guts just to hold us upright.’

  Pleased with Bowden’s expression, he continued, ‘The bo’sun says there’s twenty-six miles of rigging and a thousand pulley-blocks to go with it. She’s a hull nearly three feet thick at the waterline yet she’s the sweetest sailer on a bowline, eight or nine knots and I’ve seen eleven going large. Why, when the fleet’s at exercise—’

  The visceral thunder of drums and the flat bray of a trumpet interrupted him.

  ‘Quarters!’ he said abruptly. ‘You’d better go.’

  Bowden flew down the broad stairways among racing men to find his place in the lower gun-deck. Already the gun-ports were open on the weather side and the guns had been cast loose. It seemed an impossible seething mass of people impatiently crowding into the low-beamed space, the sharp shouts of petty officers the only sound apart from the fearful rumbling of the huge iron beasts.

  It settled as gun-crews were mustered, taking their implements and standing expectantly with handspike, ram-rod or tackle-fall to serve the three-ton monster. These were the smashers, the greatest guns in the fleet, which could send a ball as heavy as two men could lift through a yard of solid oak at a mile.

  And this was his station in battle.

  ‘Bowden, sir,’ he said, to the lieutenant standing by the fat trunk of the mizzen-mast. ‘I’m assigned here at quarters.’

  The officer waited until the warlike bustle had subsided into disciplined silence, then said, ‘Stand by me, Mr Bowden, and mark well how things are done. You may learn something.’

  Falling back respectfully, Bowden watched as gun-crews limbered up, fourteen to each gun, all looking to their gun-captain, stripped to the waist and deadly serious. And there beyond each gun another and another – sixteen of the great guns on this one side alone. When they spoke in anger surely none could stand against them.

  The practice began. Brute force and corded muscles to run out the chest-high black gun; quoin, crow and handspike to aim it; a ballet of movements to sponge, wad and charge it before the deadly ball was cradled to the muzzle.

  It was precision work of a high order: wieldi
ng six-foot rammers, heavy handspikes and the sharp, curled worm in the narrow working space between the cannon, the sequence of powder, priming and shot exactly timed – a fumbled thirty-two-pound ball rolling around could cause chaos on a crowded gun-deck.

  After the sweating gun-crews were stood down, Bowden reflected that if this was what it was like in drill, how would it be when Victory went into battle in earnest?

  Lieutenant Pasco chalked on the watch slate and handed it to the oncoming quartermaster-of-the-watch, ignoring Bowden until the set of the sails was entirely to his satisfaction. At night it was difficult to see aloft to catch the angle of the yards and he had his night-glass up to inspect the results of the trim carefully.

  To Bowden this small act spoke so powerfully of what the Navy had become with, at its core, a professionalism that was second nature to every officer and man. There was no one about on the upper deck besides the watch to appreciate it on this cold night, no admiring or critical audience, but at this moment Victory was trimmed to perfection, as though the eyes of the world were upon her.

  The watch settled down, in time-honoured fashion finding a lee and engaging in swapping yarns that grew taller with every telling. The men at the wheel would be relieved every turn of the glass and join them for a few hours.

  Lieutenant Pasco, as officer-of-the-watch, was now the supreme commander of the three-thousand-ton fighting ship. If he was awed by the notion he showed no sign of it. ‘Right, then, young Bowden, tell me what you’ve been doing with yourself in His Majesty’s finest.’

  He understood what was going on: this was a long watch and he was a new face, hopefully with a repertoire of anecdotes to hand. He answered modestly, ‘I started as a reefer in Tenacious, sixty-four, Captain Houghton . . .’

  It was well received. All officers shared a common experience in aspiring to the quarterdeck and tales of the quirks and eccentricities of those set in authority were many. Later Bowden told at some length of his adventures in Minorca with an amusing account of one of their lieutenants a-spying with an improvised signalling system.

  Pasco suddenly demanded, ‘What was the name of that lieutenant again?’

  ‘Kydd, sir.’

  ‘Thomas Kydd?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘The same as was commander of Teazer brig-sloop, lately boarded both sides, fought ’em off but then foundered? We do hear of such in the Med,’ he added sardonically.

  ‘I was with him when he first commissioned her,’ Bowden said proudly.

  ‘Were you indeed? Then I’m to tell you he’s been something of a hero to me, we both coming aft by the hawse as we did. A hard horse, at all?’

  ‘We had our days,’ Bowden admitted. ‘Knows all the tricks, if you get my meaning. But I’ll allow he’s the very kind of officer I pray I’ll be one day.’

  ‘If we be spared. Now, look, where’s your post at quarters, younker?’

  ‘Lower deck, thirty-two-pounders aft.’

  ‘The slaughter-house. I’m l’tenant of signals – would it grieve you much should you leave ’em and join me on the poop-deck as signal midshipman? I’ve a place for a quick thinker brought up in the right ways.’

  ‘I’d be honoured, sir.’

  Chapter 5

  Renzi put down his book and got to his feet as Tysoe ushered Cecilia in. ‘Why, sister – you’ve come to hear the news?’

  Her face lit up. ‘Yes! Do tell, Nicholas,’ she said impulsively. ‘Was it a grand office at all? Did you—’

  ‘Office?’

  ‘The publisher, you ninny!’

  ‘Oh. Um . . . I was in fact to tell you that your brother has offered me the post of captain’s confidential secretary in his frigate, a handsome gesture you’ll agree.’

  Cecilia sat slowly. ‘Then you haven’t been to a publisher?’

  Renzi flushed. ‘Er, I’ve been rather busy, you’ll understand.’

  She bit her lip. ‘I shall ask the marquess for a letter of introduction to any publishing house you choose. He is not to be ignored you may believe, Nicholas.’

  ‘Thank you, dear sister, but I can manage the affair myself,’ Renzi replied quickly. ‘A dish of tea with me? There’s some superior China black we’ve been saving for—’

  ‘Thank you, no,’ Cecilia said coolly, standing and smoothing her dress. ‘I find that I’m overborne with business. Good day, sir.’

  Renzi glowered at the wall. She was right, of course. Sooner or later he must approach a publisher. The act of writing was the most gratifying and intellectually rewarding thing he had done in his life. The single-minded pursuit of meaning, its expression and, in fact, the entire act of creation placed his mind on a plane that lifted him above his mortal existence.

  But what if he went to a publisher and was told that his first-born was not fit to see the light of day, that it was the mere vaporising of a dilettante amateur? His excuse for taking wings into the empyrean would be snatched from him and then he would be forced to return and . . . It couldn’t be faced.

  Therefore it could not be risked: he wouldn’t go. The logic was simple.

  Or was it? If he did not go he would never know if the work he had shaped so lovingly with his own hands might be valued by others – he would never see his scratchings on sheaves of paper transformed into a handsome leather-bound volume that would be launched into the far reaches of the world, or have gracious correspondence with enraptured readers, knowing his work delighted so many others.

  And at last he would be able to lay before Cecilia his magnum opus to her wide-eyed delight, before falling to his knees and begging her hand in marriage. Dammit – it had to be done.

  But how was he to approach a publisher and persuade them that his work was worthy enough to print? And, more to the point, was it that one put forward a sum in consideration to set them in motion or, much more improbably, was Cecilia right that they could be open to suggestions of some sort of body-and-soul advance against future sales?

  Renzi was by no means a stranger to the warren of booksellers in both Piccadilly and Paternoster Row as a book buyer, but for a would-be author it was a different matter. The latter was the haunt of the lower sort of hackery – as well as impoverished aspirants to letters eking out a living. The former, with St James’s Street and Pall Mall, was where the better sort was to be found, where Samuel Johnson, Goldsmith, even Wilkes and Franklin had begun their ventures into print.

  He dressed carefully, unsure of just what authors wore about town. He settled on his sober deep-brown but added a rather more flamboyant lace cravat and romantically raked hat to set the tone.

  In his library there were works from all the publishers of note but he did not know enough about them to impel him from one to another. Then he recalled that John Murray, the ‘doyen of belles-lettres’, had himself seen service as an officer in the Navy during the Seven Years’ War and presumably would be the more sympathetic.

  The fly-leaf of a book, however, revealed that the publisher was in Fleet Street, rather nearer to Paternoster Row than he would have liked, but at least the right side of Blackfriars Bridge. Soon he was standing outside an undistinguished four-storey red-brick house with a well-polished brass plaque on the door simply proclaiming, ‘Mr Murray’.

  Through that door there might be a new future – or the ruin of a dream. The literary lions of society did not know he existed and he had no recognition from academia: by what right did he claim the attention of probably the most successful publisher in London?

  In an agony of indecision he paced up and down until he’d summoned up courage to knock. He met with a quick impression of dark opulence, a discreet staircase and a kindly-looking gentleman in half-spectacles who stopped in surprise. ‘May I help you, sir?’

  ‘Is Mr Murray at liberty to see me, do you think? A – a private matter concerning any advice he might be able to provide.’

  ‘Then it’s an author you are, sir? If you’ll kindly wait I’ll see if I can secure an appointment for you.
’

  He was back promptly. ‘Mr Murray would be pleased to receive you now. I do hope we shall be seeing more of you, sir.’

  Ushered into a spacious and undeniably literary study, Renzi was taken aback by the youth of the individual who rose to meet him. ‘Er, Nicholas Renzi. Do I address Mr John Murray?’

  ‘You do, sir,’ he answered, then smiled. ‘I am the child of the father, so to speak.’

  ‘Then you have no service in the Navy?’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘No, Mr Renzi, my father did. I have not, thank God. Might I enquire what it is you want of me?’

  The gaze was confident and intelligent, and more than a little disconcerting, but Renzi pressed on: ‘Mr Murray, you are a publisher of note and I would value your counsel exceedingly.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Over these past few years I have laboured on a work that I flatter myself has its merit. It’s close to completion and I’m now at a stand with regard to how I might proceed, er, to be published.’

  ‘I would be honoured to advise, Mr Renzi. First, do tell me something of your origins.’

  ‘My origins? If by that you are alluding to any academic or literary qualifications I might possess then I must—’

  ‘No, sir. Your background of a personal nature – your upbringing, experiences of life, tragic circumstances, perhaps . . .’

  ‘Sir, the book must speak for itself, surely.’

  ‘Nonetheless, we publishers like to know something of our authors, sir.’

  ‘Then I have to tell you that I come from a good family and was privately educated.’

  ‘Go on.’

  It would probably not be of advantage to bring up naval service again, Renzi decided. ‘I’ve had the good fortune to travel a great deal, and to curious and remote lands upon which I gathered much first-hand data.’

  ‘Ah. A travel piece! I can assure you, sir, that since the late Captain Cook’s voyages to the South Seas the public are insatiable in their curiosity concerning outlandish and romantic parts.’

  ‘Not, as you might say, a travel piece, Mr Murray.’ He leaned forward. ‘No, sir. Rather, from this data I have converged upon postulates of a causative nature that conjoins ethnical imperatives with those of strictly economic concern.’ Renzi drew a deep breath and confided, ‘This work, sir, is in fact an exhaustive discourse in which I am in pursuit of an hypothesis of consequential response as mediated by culture.’