Free A Divided Command by David Donachie

very month,’ Nelson responded, his good cheer once more evident, ‘and very deserving of his elevation.’
    ‘Might I point out, sir,’ Farmiloe said, ‘that Mr Burns missed his examination through his incarceration.’
    ‘Bless me, I had forgotten that, which makes me doubly sorry for the troubles with which I have assailed you. On my word I will speak with Lord Hood and see if we cannot make amends.’
    ‘Do not go to any trouble on my behalf, sir.’
    ‘Mr Burns, once more your reticence does you credit. Now go with Mr Farmiloe, get busy on your return to the human race and do not keep him too long – I need his aid in getting my guns back aboard
Agamemnon
.’
    ‘If ever there was a duty to avoid, it is that one,’ Dick Farmiloe whispered, as they moved away, past the tars toiling to move cannon that had been in place for a month and had trunnions well sunk into the soil. ‘Do you recall what it was like getting the damn thing up here in the first place?’
    ‘I do,’ Toby murmured, though he was not really thinking on that. ‘How hard was the examination?’
    ‘I was sure I had flunked it. If I replied to any of the questions without a stammer I cannot recall it, in truth I would struggle to remember anything that happened clearly, except that my knees were shaking so hard it must have beenvisible, even seated with hands seeking to hold them steady.’
    ‘And yet you managed to study your books, I suppose, during the siege, I mean?’
    ‘As much as my duties here allowed, Toby, and it is to be thankful that night falls early in these parts, for if it had stayed light as it does at home in summer, we would have been plying those cannon until ten of the clock.’
    ‘The town is totally destroyed, I saw it as we came out from the citadel.’
    Toby was guided into a building that had once been part of a monastery, the interior cool after the heat of the open, to find and pass the servants of the military officers busy breaking down campaign cots and packing the chests that lay beside them with the possessions of their masters, finally stopping next to a series of hammocks slung from the roof beams, with a battered chest below picked out with Dick Farmiloe’s initials.
    ‘This is my berth, so strip off your things, Toby, and I will see to your breeches.’ The question being implicit in the look he got as he removed his blue coat, Farmiloe added, ‘We have local women who clean them up amazingly well and in this heat they dry in an hour. There is a place to wash in that little room over there, though it’s damn cold, being spring-fed. I will see about some stockings and a shirt, for those you have are beyond saving.’
    ‘Are such things to be had here?’ Toby asked as a block of soap was placed in his hand.
    ‘Oh, yes. The possessions of those who have perished are for sale. I will try to get you a shirt that belonged to a fellow sailor, but I fear you might have to settle for a bit of cambric that was once in the possession of a bullock, or even worse, Frenchman.’
    ‘Did many of our own perish, Dick?’
    ‘No more than was necessary, Toby, and if I have not yet made it plain I am glad you were not one of them.’
    ‘Despite my worries?’
    ‘Yes!’
    The two young men exchanged a look then, regarding the knowledge they both possessed but had no need to openly discuss. Richard Farmiloe too had been a midshipman on
HMS Brilliant
, indeed he had been with Toby’s Uncle Ralph on that ill-fated night when they pressed those men, John Pearce included, from the Liberties of the Savoy. Farmiloe had likewise received a letter from Gray’s Inn, couched differently from that to Toby Burns, merely asking him to confirm his presence at the incident, plus one or two salient facts that were required to be established, careful to point out that whatever else, given his lowly rank at the time, he bore no responsibility for what had occurred.
    ‘I take it you wrote a reply,’ Farmiloe asked, ‘as I