An Awkward Commission Read Online Free PDF

lookouts on the mountain, and communications with the port, and some expectation of the imminent arrival of a reconnaissance vessel.’
    ‘You mean they might wish to chase us off, sir?’
    ‘It is what I would do, Mr Glaister, it is what I would do.’
    Replacing the telescope in the rack, Ralph Barclay walked to the weather rail and began to pace up and down that space between the poop and the waist which all vacated, it being the preserve of the captain when he was on deck. His orders obliged him to reconnoitre the main enemy naval base and report back to Admiral Hotham and the fleet the state of readiness of the French capital ships in the port. If the commanding enemy admiral had any sense he would have frigates at sea to intercept such a mission. That they had raised the land without such a sighting implied that he had not. What did it mean? Was the Toulon fleet in the kind of disarray rumoured to have ruined French naval strength, with experienced officers fled from their posts for fear of the guillotine? Or was it a ruse?
    ‘Mr Glaister. Break out a tricolour flag and raise it to the masthead.’
    ‘Sir.’
    ‘And keep our own pennant ready to replace it in aninstant. I would also like to shorten sail so that the repairs will be completed and the men will have had their dinner by the time the shore is hull up.’
    ‘Should we clear for action, sir?’
    ‘After the officer’s dinner, Mr Glaister. As you know, my wife goes to great trouble to help the cook prepare a memorable meal. It would not do to upset her.’
    He looked at them all then, in a sweeping glance that had everyone avoiding his eye. There was not a man jack aboard, before and abaft the mast, who was not as jealous as hell of their uxorious captain and his lovely lady. To see her on deck, common enough in benign weather, was to induce feelings best left ashore, some mere nostalgia for hearth and home, others more carnal, that mixed with resentment that Barclay should be so favoured. He was so much his wife’s senior and did not reckon himself handsome or very attractive a person – something with which most of his crew, had he asked them, would have concurred, but he had her companionship in all respects in a way denied to the others aboard, if you discounted the Gunner’s wife, exasperating to men who had not been ashore for months. The satisfaction to be gained from the knowledge of their emotions was one of which he could never get enough, for Ralph Barclay reckoned that he had lived a life that owed him some recompense for miseries suffered, slights endured and ambitions thwarted. Now he was enjoying the feeling of justified redress, as he turned on his heel and left the quarterdeck, his parting words: ‘Mr Glaister, once you are sure all is in hand, please join me in my cabin. I need to hear your opinion on who amongst the ship’s corporals is to replace the Master- at-Arms . Mr Lutyens informs me he will be unable to fulfil his duties for some six weeks.
     
    ‘Mr Lutyens.’
    Lutyens looked up from the large journal in which he was writing. Habit made him half-close it so that what was written could not be seen, silly really, for of all the people aboard this young lady would be the last person to pry; she was too well-mannered.
    ‘I came to see if our injured are comfortable.’
    ‘They will certainly be made more so by your presence, Madame. I fear they see in me a rough and indifferent mendicant.’
    Emily waved away such a suggestion, in truth to cover a degree of embarrassment, for gossip from her husband’s officers, as well as the odd overheard remark from the men, had it that Lutyens was a touch insensitive in the article of pain, much given to applying herbal treatments which he supposed to be relieving, but failed to dull as much as the method which sailors knew and trusted, rum or laudanum. And she was slightly put out by the way he had so immediately shut his journal, as though whatever secrets he had could possibly