A Flag of Truce Read Free Page A

Hermitage wine, and gone on deck to wave, but he did not do so until the message came that the ‘flag’ had made his number and he was summoned aboard.
    ‘A bad idea, sir,’ said an even ruddier-faced Neame, ‘to appear before Lord Hood with too much drink in your belly.’
    John Pearce smiled as he rose to gather his despatches and put on his best, and dry, uniform coat. ‘I take that as a hint, Mr Neame, that you and Mr Ottershaw should finish that bottle, around which neck you have your horny sailor’s hand.’
    The purser, Ottershaw, slurred slightly in response. ‘Would not want it to go to waste, your honour, it being such a pretty drop, not the least troubled, it seems to me, by being shaken all about afore the cork was drawn.’
    ‘You do not think to keep a drop for young Harbin?’
    ‘It might not hold its true flavour,’ Neame insisted.
    ‘Be my guest, both of you. I shall treat Harbin to a capital dinner, if a besieged Toulon will run to such a thing.’

    ‘Rufus,’ said Michael O’Hagan, ‘clamber up them there shrouds and see what’s what.’
    ‘Why me?’ demanded Rufus.
    ‘Sure, did I not say please, boyo, what with you being the lightest and most nimble?’
    The words might be polite, even close to jocular, but the tone was less so, and Rufus Dommet, faced with the muscular bulk of his Irish messmate, was quick to move. With HMS
Victory
laying inshore of the anchored 74, they saw John Pearce come on deck, hat in hand, as both of the smaller warships sailed slowly by. The cheer that greeted him was spontaneous, and not to be outdone, all the ships within the roadstead took it up. Pearce looked over to the rail of HMS
Leander
and, sighting the agitated figures, waved to his companions. The world turned upside down, right enough, he thought. Three of those on that deck were the men with whom he had been pressed into the Navy, the men he had sworn to get free.
    ‘Belay that damned noise.’
    ‘Get down, Rufus, quick,’ hissed Charlie Taverner, himself letting go of the hammock nettings and dropping back onto the deck. Michael O’Hagan did likewise, while Latimer, much older,his lined face a mask of worry, had to ease himself down.
    ‘What in the name of the Lord Almighty do you think you are about?’
    ‘We’s cheering in the taking of a prize, sir,’ said Rufus, too innocent to know that saying nothing was best when dealing with Lieutenant Taberly.
    ‘Silence, damn you,’ Taberly yelled, before turning round and shouting at a midshipman who had been part of the watch. ‘You, sir, how can you stand to witness such behaviour?’
    He eased himself up onto the hammock nettings and looked out to see John Pearce in plain view, and it took only seconds for Taberly to realise that the swine was actually in command of both vessels, the despatch case in his hand finishing off the image. On the other ships they were still cheering, which made his blood boil; that a charlatan like Pearce, with whom he had exchanged words already, should receive such accolades was intolerable. Very well, those aboard this ship he had dared to name as his friends would pay.
    ‘You, sir,’ he yelled at the midshipman again, ‘are a disgrace to your coat. You cannot control the men.’
    ‘With respect, sir, they are not on watch.’
    ‘Not on watch, sir? They are not fit to be on watch, just as they are not trusted to be sent ashore without they would run, but they are fit to bepunished, sir. Take their names and let us see them at defaulters tomorrow, then, with luck, they will taste at the grating. Let us see, sir, how keen they are to cheer then.’
    John Pearce was still looking at the side of the ship, wondering why his companions in misfortune had disappeared so quickly, but that thought had to be put aside as Neame, slightly drunk but still competent, let fly the sheets, and rudder hard down, brought the ship in a wide sweep, to rest under the bulk of HMS
Victory
. He then ordered the boat lowered that