Bampton smiled. "My guineas are on that before August we'll have a new commander—mark my words."
* * *
The signal for the fleet to come about on the starboard tack was hoisted within the hour and obediently the ships shaped course westward, close-hauled and taking the seas on their bows.
Renzi did not go below. There was a pleasing solitude to be had when the men went to breakfast: thoughts could flow unchecked to their natural conclusion, and the deck, with a minimum of watchmen about, was his for the walking.
His mind strayed to the letter he had received in Gibraltar: it was from his father who, in his usual bombastic manner, had insisted that he come home to discuss his future. There was little chance of that in the near term but there was no point in putting it off for ever. The next time he was in England he would return to face him.
Peake, the chaplain, came up from below, interrupting his thoughts. "Nicholas, I was told you always took the air at this time," he said, in his precise manner. "I do hope you will not object to my company."
The deck lifted in response to a comber under the bows and he lurched over to grip a convenient downhaul. A double crossing of the North Atlantic had not improved his sea-legs.
"You are most welcome, Padre," Renzi answered warmly. He had respect for the man, who was the most nearly learned of all aboard, one with whom he could dispute Rousseau, natural law, ethics, or any other subject valued by an Enlightened mind. The chaplain had volunteered for the sea service as his contribution to the struggle against France but, with a life perspective best termed literal, he was not preserved from the torments of midshipmen and irreverents by a saving sense of humour.
"As Milton has it, 'In solitude, what happiness? Who can enjoy alone, or, all enjoying, what contentment find?'" admonished Peake.
"Just so, Mr Peake. Yet please believe I have a desire at times to withdraw from the company of men—but merely for the contemplation of the sublime that is at the very essence of the sea." He had not the heart to discourage a man so manifestly reaching out.
Renzi saw Peake look about doubtfully at the straining sails and hurrying waves. The fleet's progress west was necessarily against the same streaming north-westerly that had brought them eastward so rapidly. Now at each watch there would be anxious glances to the flagship for the signal "prepare to tack," the warning that, yet again, there would be all hands at the sheets and braces for the hard work at putting about. Peake would see little of the sublime in such sea-enforced labour, Renzi mused, then enquired, "You are not enjoying your watery sojourn? Such lands as you've seen would cost a pretty penny to experience were you to ship as passenger."
"I do not value such adventures. Canada, I find, has an ... excess of colour, and what I saw of Gibraltar does not spark in me any great desire for sightseeing."
"Yet you have chosen the sea life?"
"I feel a certain calling. At the same time, I will confess to you, sir, in a sense it weighs heavily." "Oh?"
Peake turned to face him. "Nicholas—I think we might be accounted friends? Fellow believers? That is," he hastened to add, "in the essential rationality of the objective man when detached from corporeal encumbrances?"
"I warm to Leibniz and his position before that of your Spinoza and his Deductions, Mr Peake."
"Quite so—we have discussed this before, as I recollect. No, sir, what I face might be considered a ... dilemma of conscience."
"Ah! Bayle and the Sceptic position," Renzi said, with keen anticipation.
Peake winced. "Not as who should say, sir. I will be frank—in the lively trust in your discretion and the earnest hope that you will assist me in coming to a comfortable resolution."
"My discretion is assured, sir, but I cannot be sanguine about my suitability to aid you in a matter of churchly ethics."
"Never so, Renzi. Allow me to set forth the essentials. Since childhood I have been charmed by the tightness of nature: such nicety in the disposition of leaves on a stem, musculature in a cat, the flight of a swallow. In fine, Renzi, it is life's vitality itself that, for me, is of all the world the greater worth."
He looked closely at Renzi, then out to the immensity of the sea. "Here is the dilemma, my friend. I had an adequate living as curate in a peaceful village in Shropshire, and you may believe that for the quiet and reflective mind there are few occupations that can better that of a country parson.
"When the revolution began in France I was puzzled. Then an emigre French family came to the village and I learned of the true situation while attending upon the matriarch, who had lost her mind at the experience." His voice strengthened. "This is the reason for the offer of my services to His Majesty—that in some way I was playing a part in the defending of my country against such unspeakable horrors."
"A noble part, Mr Peake," Renzi murmured.
"But in my time on Tenacious I have learned much indeed. The sailors are rough fellows but in their way are as tender as babes to each other. And the midshipmen, scamps and rascals indeed, but I feel that they act as they do out of a need to retreat from martial horrors to the innocence of their so recently departed childhood."
Renzi's eyebrows went up, but he said nothing. Peake drew a deep breath and continued, "What I am saying is that I have been privileged to see a species of humanity, nauta innocentia, that perfectly displays the qualities of life-cherishing animation that I so value. So you may recognise the anguish I feel when the captain calls for practice with his cannon—those mortal engines, whose rude throats could counterfeit the dread clamours of Jove!
"Renzi, my friend, please understand, it causes me the utmost pain when my unruly imagination pictures for me their purpose— the tearing apart of the sacred flesh of life and its utter and final extinction. Be they enemy of my country, I cannot prevent the betraying thought that even so they hold within them the same vital flame.
"How can I bring myself to accede to my captain's constant pressing to hurl unrelenting maledictions on the French in sermon and prayer when I find myself in such brotherly commune with their life-force? How can I hate an enemy when I understand only too well what it is to contain life within you? Whatever should I do? Nicholas—I'm torn. Help me do my duty."
The beat west was tiring and dispiriting, long miles of vigilant ships but empty sea. A distance further than a complete Atlantic crossing, weeks turning to months—and still not even the wisp of a rumour of a vast French fleet.
South of Crete, with the ancient land of Greece left to starboard, they were traversing the width of the Ionian Sea and approaching where they had left with such hopes a long month before. There was now a pressing need for provisions and water. In these lonely and hostile seas the only possibility was the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and of these the closer was Syracuse, on the eastern shores of Sicily.
The hard-run fleet, each ship with the blue ensign of Rear Admiral Nelson aloft, sighted the rugged pastel grey coast of Sicily at last and prepared to enter the ancient port. The sleepy town lay under the sun's glare to starboard, mysterious ruins above scrubby cliffs to larboard. It was a difficult approach with troubled waters betraying rocky shoals extending menacingly into the bare half-mile of the intricate entrance.
Once inside, the spacious reaches of an enfolding harbour welcomed the ships. One by one they dropped anchor. People gathered along the seafront, hastily filled bumboats contended to be first out to the fleet, but with decorum proper to the occasion, England's union flag arose on each man-o'-war's jackstaff forward.
But before they could proceed, the local officials had to be placated. It was difficult for the city governor: any favouritism towards the British might be construed as a violation of neutrality by the suspicious French, and at first he was obstructive and implacable. It required an exercise of ingenuity and tact to arrive at a form of words that allowed a show of resistance, after which his attentions could not be faulted.