Free The Perils of Command by David Donachie Page B

he could be present for the express purpose of searching for her.
    Pearce had good cause to worry, as well. Ralph Barclay had proved already that he would stop at very little, possibly nothing, to get her back. There had been threats aplenty delivered by that slimy article Gherson, and there had even been criminality when the office of Emily’s solicitor was broken into and all his papers stolen.
    It took no great imagination to see what Barclay was after on that occasion: the copy of the transcript of his court martial, a list of damning perjuries that could ruin him. It was that document which had held him at bay, for he had the law on his side when it came to the forceful return of his wife.
    John Pearce was then obliged to recall that Emily was not herself beyond subterfuge. The transcript should have been lost at sea and he had spent much time thinking it to be so, only to discover that she had stolen it from where it hadbeen stored for safekeeping, this when the ship on which they were travelling back to England was engulfed in flames prior to being abandoned.
    She had lodged it with her solicitor not to aid him – that came later – but to protect her from a man with whom she no longer wanted any truck. How, given such actions in the past, could she possibly consider going back to him now? How could he, who could not face that such an outcome could be allowed, stop her?
     
    Admiral Sir William Hotham was reading the orders, composed by Toomey, that would send Ralph Barclay away from the fleet and he was far from happy at the contents. Such an act would have repercussions and he was searching his mind for some way to balance that which he reckoned he had to succumb to. He needed to find a way to remind Barclay that he was the C-in-C and not someone to be trifled with.
    ‘Toomey,’ he called towards the open cabin door, as enlightenment struck. ‘Do you have the fleet muster rolls?’
    ‘Of course, Sir William.’
    ‘I seem to recall that HMS Semele is well found in the article of hands.’
    The answer was delivered as Toomey entered the great cabin. ‘Fresh from home, sir, she is bound to be.’
    ‘While even Britannia is short.’
    ‘Wear and tear, sir,’ Toomey replied wearily, wondering where this was heading.
    The fleet had been in the Mediterranean for coming up to two years and there had been the usual losses to attrition, added to those who had been either wounded or perishedat the Siege of Toulon. Endless requests had been sent home for drafts of seamen to be sent out and all of them had been ignored, the Channel Fleet and an expedition to the West Indian Sugar Islands taking precedence. Hood had undertaken to press the case once back in England but so far nothing had come of it.
    ‘Then I think we must strip Mr Barclay of his good fortune and balance it with the needs of the fleet as a whole.’
    That still left Toomey in a state of wondering. First as to why Hotham was indulging Barclay, and then this, for he had not been privy to their private conversation and his employer had not enlightened him. That it had upset Hotham he knew, sensitive as he was to the admiral’s moods, yet as of this moment the gloom seemed to have lifted.
    ‘Write an order stripping out of HMS Semele one hundred and twenty men to be distributed throughout the fleet to those captains who plague me for their lack of hands. The lucky recipients we will grant twenty apiece, the flagship being first in line, which will please Mr Holloway.’
    ‘You had in mind to shift him sir, I recall?’
    ‘In time, Toomey, we must wait till Hyde Parker is back with us.’
    The clerk hated to be in the dark and he justified his need to know as being essential to the well-being of his employer. There was a touch of the weathervane about the admiral and the Irishman was convinced he needed sound advice to act in his own best interests. It was a risk to ask for elucidation but one he felt he had to take.
    ‘Can I ask, Sir William, what are