The bell sounded the hour. Peto snapped to, and addressed himself to the present – the evening muster. He did not intend going about the ship on this first day at sea (he must leave his lieutenant a little space so soon out and under a new captain), but he would walk the gangboard to the forecastle, casting an eye over as much as he could, animate and otherwise, without too much appearance of inspection.
Marines stood by the carronades, their fighting quarters. It was not unusual, but on the whole he preferred the jollies to be under small arms: they did more service in picking off an enemy’s sharpshooters aloft than raking the decks with grape. He would speak of it to Lambe before tomorrow’s exercise. But what else he saw he approved of – and it was all so different from his own time in a ship of the Line, in Nelson’s day: at evening muster, with the second rum issue not two hours before (and twice the ration it was today) there would be many a man fumbling and stumbling in his stupor, thrashed by the petty officers with a knotted rope end, until some wretched word of insubordination saw him clapped in irons for captain’s punishment – the cat at the grating – next morning. But that had perforce been the way; what other was there with men brought and kept aboard against their will?
He had disliked it, of course; none but a captain predisposed to cruelty could have liked it (there were such men, he would admit). Without the rum few men would have transgressed so; but how could a crew be kept content without grog? Yes, there had been some temperance men – by conviction or through poor constitution – who would drink cocoa or tea instead, trading their tots for coin or credit, but the great majority lived for their rum. It was only the rum ration that had made life bearable. Peto wondered, deep down, if it could be otherwise today were it to come to war with the Turk. He turned and made his way back along the gangboard on the opposite side, passed the guns on the quarterdeck with but a glance, and climbed the companion to the poop.
Two midshipmen stood smartly to attention, and two clerks behind them. Peto looked them up and down in an unofficial sort of way, before fixing on the one: ‘Let me see your telescope, Mr Pelham.’
The signal midshipman handed it to him.
Peto trained it on Archer half a mile ahead and to larboard. ‘You know what is parallax, Mr Pelham?’
‘I do, sir.’
‘Do you consider that your telescope has parallax error?’
Pelham hesitated. ‘I had not, sir.’
‘I very much fear that it does.’ He handed back the instrument.
Pelham put it back under his arm and continued to stand at attention.
‘Have a look, man!’
The unfortunate midshipman did as he was bid. ‘Sir, I see it now.’
Peto turned and stalked away. There was little to be served by telling the man (if man were truly the right word; boy seemed more apt) that he ought to have discovered the error for himself before they left Gibraltar, so that he might have had it rectified – or have found a new one. Neither did Peto want abject humiliation for him in front of two of the crew. All the same, his signal midshipman . . . What did it portend, that below the surface of what he saw with approval – indeed, at his first look below that surface – there was inadequacy?
He had thoroughly vexed himself as he came up to the wheel. ‘Mr Lambe, Mr Pelham’s telescope has a pronounced parallax error. How in the name of heaven does he suppose he will read a signal at any distance?’
The lieutenant was not quite so dismayed. ‘I am certain he would not suppose it, sir. He fell heavily as we beat to. I suspect that is when the damage was done.’
Peto looked at him, uncomprehending: the deck was motionless.
‘He lost his footing coming down from the main mast. He had gone aloft to see if there were any last signals ashore.’
Peto scowled. It could happen to anybody, though more was the pity young Pelham hadn’t thought to discover the injury to his telescope . . .
Lambe would not absolve himself, however. ‘I should have insisted he went to the surgeon. But he’s plucky, and wouldn’t surrender the poop to Gardiner. I will have him and the telescope replaced.’
By now the lieutenants were coming on the quarter-deck to report that all was in good order. Peto took a few paces to the rear to let Lambe work things his way. At length, with the last report made, Lambe was able to turn to him and report that the ship was ready to change to the night routine.
‘Very good, Mr Lambe. Secure guns and pipe down hammocks.’
‘Ay-ay, sir!’
Peto cast his eye about one more time. ‘And I would see Mr Pelham back in his place as soon as may be.’
‘Ay-ay, sir.’
‘And you will join me at dinner?’
‘With great pleasure, sir.’
Peto nodded, his look softening to something approaching a smile, and turned for his cabin.
An hour later, in fresh linen and his second-best coat, Peto stood looking out of the stern windows, the brilliant red twilight a picture he thought the finest of artists would never be able to capture faithfully, for it was more than mere colour. It would not be long before the moon was up – a good moon, he expected – and they ought to be able to keep a fair rate of sailing throughout the silent hours (the wake was whitening – no doubt of it).
He ducked into the starboard quarter gallery to observe the set of the sails for a last time before dinner. Hands were already taking in the topgallants; he could want no more of his lieutenant and the master. But then, with but a handful of three-deckers in commission, why should it be other? There was many an able officer who would no more go to sea, for all his capability.
Things had certainly changed, he mused. Except the ships themselves. Rupert was built a little stronger, perhaps, but in essence – in detail indeed – she was just as Victory. And at Trafalgar Victory had been forty years old. In his time in the East, and lately beached in Norfolk, he had given these matters much thought. He had seen steam manoeuvring to advantage at Rangoon – and, indeed, he had come to Gibraltar by steam packet (though sail had, in truth, conveyed him for much of that journey) – and although he could not imagine how a paddle wheel might move a ship of the Line, he thought it not improbable that some keen-witted engineer would find a way. And if somehow the army’s Shrapnel shell might be adapted, or even one that might explode and rupture a ship’s side, would that not spell the end of the wooden walls? The Navy Board would have to clad its ships in iron, like the knights of old. And had not the knights then become immobile?
He sighed. Would it come in his time? It was strange: in one breath he longed for the innovation, for the capability was there and others might seize it (the Americans for sure would be thinking of it: they held the old ways in little regard. And the French, of course. None but a fool doubted they were the better shipbuilders; it had been as well they were not the better sailors!). And was not any advantage to be taken to defeat the King’s enemies? Yet in another breath he wished for not one jot of change, for it was the old world that had served so well, and he had mastered it.
If ever he got his flag and it ended up being soot-specked at the mizzen . . . Well, it would at least be a flag. He had always reckoned that had he been born twenty years earlier he would have made Vice; but now he would be content to retire a rear admiral, and doubtless he would fly his flag ashore rather than at the mizzen mast of a line-of-battle ship.
A confident knock at the cabin door brought him back to the present.
‘Come in!’ he roared (though with the ship under weigh it would have sounded fainter to whoever knocked).