Deadly Shores (The Duty and Destiny Series, Book 11) Page 2

  Post chaises were often advertised as ‘twelve miles to the hour’ machines, but few in practice delivered such impetuous speed, especially at night. Captain Murray regretted his urgency with the host at the Crown as he bounced through the dark hours, the wheels hitting every pothole, hanging grimly onto the leather straps at the windows, the boys whistling and whooping at their charges, holding them together and calling them to greater efforts, delighting in their freedom to be irresponsible, wild almost in their endeavours to serve their country.

  Captain Murray found himself outside the doors of the Admiralty before ten o’clock that evening. He sent a night porter to the office of the Hydrographer - where the Intelligencers hid away; there would be a duty man, half asleep and regretting his dinner no doubt. Three minutes brought a young gentleman scurrying along the corridors, leading Captain Murray to one side and listening to his news.

  “The First Lord is to be found in London, sir. He will be at his town house. I shall send an immediate messenger to him. Another must be sent to Downing Street, I must imagine, sir.”

  Captain Murray disagreed; better that the First Lord should inform the Prime Minister in person when he had decided what his best course of action must be. To usurp his function could not be a tactful course and they did not wish to start a political flurry.

  “You might wish to pass the word to some of our own confidential people. We must not go over the head of the First Lord, but we might, as it were, go under it.”

  The young man smiled, and set off to prime the rumour mill and especially to send word to the Running Footman public house, haunt of the indoor men of the great. Every man of affairs in London would hear of the Spanish business over his breakfast, if not earlier.

  Less than an hour saw a private carriage arriving at the Admiralty and Captain Murray driven to Lord Mulgrave’s dwelling. My Lord was hosting a dinner party and could hardly leave his guests without creating rumours of a national emergency; he had to deal with the business in his own library.

  “Briefly, My Lord, the Spanish navy has engaged and defeated a French flotilla and taken them as prizes into Ferrol. They have exchanged salutes and spoken kindly to Sir Frederick.”

  The First Lord nodded and ripped open the cover of Frederick’s despatch, read for a few minutes.

  “All that we might have hoped for, Captain Murray. Let me see now… He has been a busy gentleman! I could envy him his prize-fund! You have spoken to the military on land, sir. That could be useful.”

  Captain Murray steepled his fingers, spoke gravely.

  “I must correct that impression, my Lord. There is no longer such a thing as a Spanish ‘military’. The army has fragmented into disparate provincial commands, and there are also various militias, some of which are little more than bands of brigands. It will be necessary to speak separately, I suspect, to the Juntas of every Province, and quite possibly to negotiate with various forces inside each separate little fiefdom. It is not impossible, my Lord, that Spain might be reduced to the old Kingdoms, caused no longer to exist as a nation.”

  Lord Mulgrave winced – he wanted no part of any destruction of a sovereign state. Dismember one such and any number of others would appear fragile; they needed a powerful Austrian Empire, as an example, not a fragmented set of Catholic and Protestant Kingdoms, all more concerned to fight each other rather than Bonaparte.

  “I must take this to the Prime Minister and he will desire, I do not doubt, to bring the Cabinet together. That will take time, of course. You might wish, Captain Murray, to speak to some of your acquaintance – Mr Critchel springs to mind. There are those in the Cabinet whose reaction to anything new is to wait for six months to see if it might not go away. We cannot wait in this instance. Action must be taken. It is, however, too late tonight to go visiting. Do you know where your lady wife is to be located, Captain Murray? Is she in London or in rural Hampshire?”

  “I hope she may be in her parents’ Town House, my Lord.”

  “Then I shall have you taken there, sir. If they are not in London, then there will be a bed here, sir.”

  Mrs Murray was in London, was delighted to welcome her husband, but upset when she embraced him to discover bandages under his shirt. She burst into tears at the sight of his back.

  “An act of folly on my part, my dear. I can offer no excuse, except perhaps that I knew my time as an active participator in the collection of intelligence was at an end and I wanted one last excursion on foreign shores. I was rescued by my man, Goldfarb, at peril of his own existence, I would add. He is to be my follower now. I must as well hire a valet, I believe, for I am to take no further part in the Game; I need no longer protect my privacy. I have learned my lesson – painfully!”

  “Do you return to the squadron, sir?”

  “No. I have no intention of ever using the sea again. This last portion of prize-money is all that I shall ever earn – though I do expect to pick up some thousands from this pot. Let me tell you of Sir Frederick’s doings!”

  She was impressed, but not so much so that she forgot to take him to task for his lack of care for himself, before she led him to her bed.

  They breakfasted together, explaining to her amazed parents, who had retired before he had arrived and came down unaware of his presence, that Sir Frederick – and by implication, Captain Murray – had contrived a great stroke which could only be of lasting benefit to the war.

  “I have been sent back to London to carry and explain our despatches, Mr Turner. I expect not to return to sea, and will not wish to take up my old post in the Admiralty. You are aware that some of my activities may best have been described as ‘clandestine’; that part of my existence is now ended.”

  “Wise indeed, Captain Murray. I believe those must be bandages I see beneath your shirt, sir? Were you severely used?”

  Captain Murray grimaced, taken by surprise by the old gentleman’s acuity.

  “I was taken by a French outpost and was flogged somewhat for seeming not to be a local man and hence suspicious. Fortunately, they were no more than half-hearted, not really supposing me to be a true spy.”

  “I should send a man to Sir Henry, perhaps, begging him to call?”

  Sir Henry Halford was a fashionable physician, beloved of the dowagers of Mayfair and wonderfully courteous, but possessed few other virtues in Captain Murray’s opinion.

  “Thank you, sir, but there is a young Scottish gentleman who I have consulted in the past, and who knows my constitution, and is very much up to the mark with modern practice. I had rather that a note be sent to him.”

  The doctor in question was in the habit of washing his hands between patients, a rare conceit which had endeared him to Captain Murray.

  “If you will give his direction, I shall send the footman immediately, Captain Murray.”

  Captain Murray made his thanks in form, being still unsure of how to treat his father-in-law.

  “May I ask what you intend to do now, Captain Murray? I am aware that you must have a little of prize-money – do you intend to retire to leisure now?”

  “I have yet to think, sir. For the next few days I must remain at the disposal of the Admiralty, and I must consult with a few gentlemen regarding the merits and deserts of Sir Frederick – so able a man and one who should be cherished, I believe.”

  “I much liked what I saw of him, Captain Murray. Will he continue at sea, do you think?”

  “He cannot after this commission – he is due, and overdue, for some years of half-pay. He has been greatly favoured with employment and in all honesty must stay ashore for a time. Whether he is to embrace a rural existence, is another matter. I suspect his captain, Sir Iain Jackman, will also go to half-pay, though it might not be impossible for him to be employed still.”

  Mr Turner chose not to indulge himself in public office – he was not, he said, of the material that politicians were made from. He possessed, however, significant interest which he occasionally used; no fewer than eight Members sat for
constituencies wholly or partly located on Mr Turner’s estates.

  “We must see, Captain Murray.”

  They talked a little, essentially Town gossip, of little interest to Captain Murray.

  “You will no doubt wish to meet some of your acquaintance today, Captain Murray. The town carriage is at your disposal, sir.”

  The doctor arrived, hard on the heels of the footman; any London physician anxious to build his practice must jump to Mr Turner’s command. He examined Captain Murray’s bared back and shook his head in shock and dismay.

  “Repeated blows of a whip, I must imagine, sir. You were very brutally beaten. I shall say no more.”

  Doctor Findlater had treated others among Captain Murray’s peers, had some slight idea of how they had come to carry unusual injuries.

  “The lesions are clean, sir. Salt-water immersion, I must imagine?”

  “I was brought from the shore by small boat, the wounds uncovered.”

  “Then you were very fortunate, sir. The sepsis tends not to survive salt-water, though why, I cannot imagine. The bulk of the open wounds are showing healing in an advanced stage, sir. They are forming some very laudable scar tissue. You must, sir, at the expense I have no doubt of some pain, stretch and twist your back repeatedly every day, to prevent the scars tightening and reducing the power to move. You may be crippled and bent over if you do not, sir. I shall send a lotion which will soften the scarring, but you must act to preserve yourself, sir. No sitting hunched over at a desk, sir!”

  Mrs Murray promised that he would be good.

  Mr Critchel was delighted to receive Captain Murray at his Town House – any connection with the reclusive and elusive Mr Turner was to be cultivated.

  “The Dons have actually attacked and defeated the French at sea, sir? Five line-of-battle ships taken into Ferrol under Spanish colours? I shall not ask how many owed their defeat to Sir Frederick!”

  “More to Sir Iain, Mr Critchel. He found the opportunity to cross a liner at pistol-shot – not for the first time in his illustrious career!”

  “What men they are, Captain Murray! I sit in London and am amazed, and delighted, whenever I hear of the doings of beings so far superior in the manly virtues to one such as I!”

  “I have considered myself privileged to observe their actions, sir.”

  “There is evidence that you have done far more than simply watch, Captain Murray.”

  Critchel glanced where the missing hand should be.

  “I observed too closely on occasion, it would seem, sir.”

  “So you did! Well said, sir. It is not impossible that an emissary of the King might speak to you now that you are in London, Captain Murray. Would you be willing to change your name? As Baron Murray of Wherever, you could offer very great service in, perhaps, the offices of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Now that you are a married man, sir, a title might be of interest to you, and to your lady.”

  Mr Critchel was an important figure, always in the background when Honours were to be disbursed, as Captain Murray well knew. His mention of the possibility meant that the offer was a certainty, unless the message was sent back that the Honour would be refused. The convention was that the King’s benison could not be rejected by any loyal subject, so great care was taken that no offer of a peerage was made to those who might not want it.

  “A title must be of interest, Mr Critchel, to every right-thinking man – especially, as you say, when that man has a wife! I would be deeply grateful, sir, as would my lady. But, may I ask what might come to Sir Frederick as a result of his action? Taking great risk as he did to bring the Spanish into this war on the right side must surely be as valuable as any battle.”

  “As a post-captain, even if a Commodore, he cannot be ennobled, Captain Murray. That would set too many cats among the pigeons! Every other senior captain would be lined up, cap in hand. But the day he hoists his Flag – Blue at the Mizzen, I doubt not – he becomes Baron Abbey. Sir Iain may find himself a baronet before then – that is a strong possibility, but a peerage to a mere captain when many an admiral is not even a knight? We might well find ourselves faced with an Inglorious Revolution!”

  Captain Murray was forced to admit the justice of Mr Critchel’s words, and he knew that his promises were never lightly made; Sir Frederick was certain of his barony.

  “I must leave you, Mr Critchel, for I must speak to Lord Alton today. May I inform my lady of the Honour that is to be ours?”

  “Should you be at home – at Mr Turner’s one presumes – at about four o’clock, then an Equerry will no doubt take great delight in giving that message himself.”

  Captain Murray returned to the Turners in mid-afternoon and then had to discover excuses why they might not venture forth to visit their acquaintance. Eventually he was forced to say that it was not impossible that there might be a significant personage knocking at the door at four o’clock; it would have been discourteous to the King, almost lese-majeste, to disclose who the visitor might be, or what was his purpose.

  A carriage drew up within the minute of four and a Gentleman of the Court, in full uniform including pigtail, emerged and waited for his footman to knock on the door. It seemed that a gentleman of his standing would not risk bruising his knuckles.

  The butler brought him in, bowing low.

  “Sir Maurice Barton, sir.”

  Mr Turner made Sir Maurice welcome, introducing his wife, son-by-marriage and daughter.

  “May I have the privilege of speaking to Captain Murray, Mr Turner? There is no requirement for privacy, sir. Captain Murray, His Britannic Majesty, King George, Third of that Name, desires that you should serve him in the Upper House of Parliament.”

  The King could not ask a subject to serve him – he must order.

  “Thank you, Sir Maurice. I am His Majesty’s most loyal servant to command.”

  The business was over – all that remained was to determine the title and pay the enormous fees demanded by the College of Heralds for his coat of arms.

  Sir Maurice withdrew, not expecting refreshment, for that might have demeaned the solemnity of the occasion.

  Mrs Murray blinked, rarely amazed, realised that the new name she had barely become used to was no longer hers. Her husband caught her eye.

  “Well, my Lord?”

  “What must our handle be, my Lady?”

  An important question, and not lightly to be decided. The simplest was to be Lord Murray of Caenby, the hamlet in Lincolnshire nearest his father’s house – but the name Murray was not necessarily glorious in recent history – too many remembered the Murray who had acted the informer after the ’45. They must give the question thought – but not too long, for the word would be about Town within the day. The family, as well, must be considered – Mr Turner’s opinion could not lightly be dismissed, must indeed be begged.

  Lord Mulgrave called Captain Murray to him, as a courtesy, to inform him of the first results of Sir Frederick’s action.

  “Horse Guards is to send a deputation of three senior officers to negotiate with the Junta of Galicia first of all, and then with such others as are willing to speak to us. Separately, the offer is to be made to open our dockyards to any Spanish vessels wishing to refit, knowing that naval stores are short in Spain. On a less visible level, the news is to be disseminated throughout France by our people, in order to humiliate Bonaparte and force him to ill-prepared and impetuous action. British forces are to go to Lisbon as well. The Army is to recruit volunteers from the Militia – including officers, a decision not made lightly, bearing in mind their breeding and quality – and that, it is hoped, will provide many tens of thousands of at least partly-trained men. The intention is that we shall be able to maintain a military presence on land in Europe, for the first time, so that Bonaparte is faced by an active army to his south. Hopefully, of course, the Spanish Army will do the brunt of the attacking, but it will demonstrate to Prussia, to Russia and especially to Austria, that Britain will figh
t on land. It may end the complaint that the British spend gold while Austria disburses blood.”

  “Sir Frederick will be pleased to hear that he has made so much possible, I do not doubt, my Lord.”

  Lord Mulgrave shook his head.

  “I can do very little for him in person, as you are aware, my Lord. I do not know what your title is to be, I am afraid.”

  “We have agreed that I shall be Lord Turner, my Lord.”

  Lord Mulgrave nodded thoughtfully – there were many ramifications to that choice of name.

  “I understand that Mr Turner’s sons are both more inclined to agricultural pursuits than to becoming Public Men, Lord Turner?”

  “That is indeed so, my Lord.”

  Captain Murray was to become the effective public face of the Turner interest and thus a man of not insignificant power in the nation. They spoke no more on that issue.

  “One related matter, Lord Turner. My despatch to Sir Frederick will include the information that Sir Iain Jackman has been promoted to the baronetcy. You may wish to send a less official letter to explain to Sir Frederick just what his future may hold.”

  “I shall be pleased to, my Lord. I must as well remind him to tread discreetly in Mediterranean waters. The Commander-in-Chief can be a touchy gentleman.”

  The First Lord was in regular receipt of letters from that touchy admiral, needed no reminder of the gentleman’s faults, or of his vastly overwhelming virtues.

  “Another touchy gentleman, Lord Turner, is Prince Ernest, the Duke of Cumberland. Are you aware of any especial reason why he might display a degree of animus towards Sir Frederick?”

  “A recent phenomenon, my Lord?”

  “Fairly much so, yes, Lord Turner.”

  “You might have noted that Sir Frederick stopped a ship in Spanish waters that transpired to be English registered, at the time of his venture onshore to destroy the battery below Ferrol, my Lord. The vessel was equipped with a slave deck and manacles, but was carrying no cargo. Sir Frederick pressed the bulk of her very heavy crew. The surmise was that she was white-slaving, my Lord.”