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snapped, ‘that I take it very amiss that you doubt my ability to be discreet, which I will be, however shabbily I feel I am being treated.’
    ‘Yet,’ Parker interjected, somewhat relieved by what Pearce had just said, ‘it would be best if you were absent fora short while. I still require that you present your logs to be examined, but once they are I will issue orders to proceed to Leghorn to make up your stores.’
    ‘Thank you, sir.’

    Pearce ran into a waiting Furness as he exited the great cabin; the premier was not going to let him go, especially since it was very close to the time for the wardroom dinner. With the door closed and Furness speaking he could not hear what was said inside.
    ‘Do you think we can trust him, milord?’
    ‘Absolutely, Parker.’ Seeing a questioning look, Hood added, ‘I know my man – indeed, if he wasn’t such a touchy sod I could get to quite like him, for whatever else Pearce is, there’s not a craven bone in his body. He’s his father’s son, man, and even if Adam Pearce was pestilential in his rantings about equality and the like, he was no coward. King George might not have all his marbles, but he did not do a disservice to the navy when he promoted old Adam’s son.’
    ‘And this?’ Parker asked, waving the letter.
    That produced a particular look in Hood’s eye, one Parker had seen many times and one that implied a great deal of thought was being processed by a very acute mind.
    ‘Portland may propose, but it is Billy Pitt that will dispose. When I have his ear it will be to tell him that he is mistaken in giving way.’ The voice rose discernibly and added to that was a rasping growl. ‘I am not ready for the knacker’s yard yet.’

CHAPTER THREE
    The party that marched out of Calvi under a truce flag had taken great care to look elegant: the French general, as if to underline that he had been a soldier in pre-Revolutionary times, wore a freshly powdered wig under his tricorn hat, while his junior officers, several of them naval, looked fit for a sovereign’s parade. The party that moved forward and down from the Royal Louis battery could not match them either in dress or carriage, General Stuart particularly looking positively ill, while Captain Nelson had a bandage under his hat that covered one of his eyes. The third member wore no recognisable garb that could be called a uniform.
    If the British officers and their lone Corsican could not match the French in dress they were quick to equal them in determination: the garrison must surrender forthwith, while the requests for the sailors to be allowed to take their own ships back to the mainland, with the soldiers as passengers, was quickly squashed. One of the vessels sheltering in the deep-water channel under the fortress guns was a very finefrigate named
Melpomene
; Nelson was determined it should be forfeit.
    In the end it was agreed that the garrison of Calvi, having put up a good fight and in a way that left no taste of bitterness, could march out with their arms. A cartel, a British transport vessel, would be put at their disposal to take them back to their homeland. In the meantime no guns were to be spiked and nothing was to be done to the naval vessels that would diminish their immediate usefulness as they came under the Union Flag and a British crew.
    ‘Though I am damned if I know where we are going to find the hands to man them.’
    Nelson said this as he, General Stuart and the Corsican representative, made their way back to the Allied lines to prepare for the forthcoming act of formal surrender. If he had expected a cheerful and reassuring response from the red-coated bullock he was left disappointed, not that such came as much of a surprise.
    Malady was not the only thing that made Stuart a less than endearing fighting companion in this siege; his manner had been abrupt throughout and he was wont to treat any sailor, however successful, as a burden with which he was unfortunately saddled. It