‘yellow admiral’, the soubriquet for an officer who might carry the rank but would never raise his flag at sea.
These were opinions of which he was unaware and did not share: Sumner reckoned himself as a genius both in the art of command at sea and the tactics required to achieve a great victory over his nation’s enemies, sure that those now leading the fleets were inferior to him in all regards. Thus he bombarded the Admiralty with pleas for a position suited to the talents he held were his and lived in constant fury at the rebuffs he received, however politely they were couched. His face, now showing doubt, told Emily that she had struck home, that Sumner was wondering if he had inadvertently overreached himself.
‘The Tower,’ he said weakly.
‘Perhaps not that, sir, but certainly censure. I decline to mention the fate of Admiral Byng.’
No word could have hit home harder to a vainglorious fool; Byng had been shot by firing squad on his own quarterdeck for his failures off Minorca. But there was the matter of dignity, not to say the need to cover what might prove to have been a mistake.
‘Madam, I will not receive censure for doing my duty.’
‘I was rather referring to your exceeding it, sir.’
Sumner pulled himself up to his full, if insubstantialheight and again used the horsewhip to point at Emily, jabbing it to make his purpose plain. ‘I judge by your manner and facility of tongue that you are a lady of some intelligence. It may be you speak the truth. Have no doubt I will make enquiries regarding that—’
‘Do so, Admiral Sumner,’ Emily responded, cutting right across him again and forcing onto her face a knowing smile that did not lack a trace of pity; she did not feel as relaxed as she hoped she looked, for in her chest her heart was pounding, as it had been since she had come through the door. ‘I see you as a man who cares not one jot for the peril to which he may expose himself and perhaps it will be seen as such. Then again, perhaps it will not. What a sad end it will be to a long and no doubt distinguished career, in the service of His Majesty.’
That got a meaningless grunt, but it also got him brushing past her and out into the street. Emily did not turn to see him go, she looked hard at the innkeeper.
‘Be so good as to fetch my luggage and then, when you have done that, make sure that a place is booked for me on the morning coach. I shall, of course, eat in my rooms tonight, and as to payments made and reimbursement, I will leave my husband to deal with that on his return to England. Added to that you will observe the mud on the hem of my dress. I require that to be cleaned.’
The entirely made-up posture held until Emily was safe in her little parlour. Only then did the facade crack and tears begin to wet her pupils as she realised what a close call it had been. She had lied so convincingly and, looking around the rooms in which she and John Pearce had made love against all the laws of the land and holymatrimony, it made her wonder just how much the standards by which she had been raised had been eroded, which was not a comfortable state of mind.
The use of the long oars, even with the tide to help, ensured that progress was slow, so it was late afternoon before Buckler’s Hard came into sight. HMS
Larcher
swept round the last bend in the river, a turn of ninety degrees that allowed the wind to play on what little sail Pearce had kept aloft and they assisted the forward movement. This relieved a weary crew to go about the duties required to get the armed cutter to a berth and obliged Pearce to put back on his heavy blue coat, for a boat had set off immediately they were sighted to lead them to the mid-river buoy to which they were to tie up.
There was little to see other than that for which the hamlet had been created by a long-dead Lord Montague; it was a site for shipbuilding set at the base of the New Forest, with enough water to float out empty hulls at high
These were opinions of which he was unaware and did not share: Sumner reckoned himself as a genius both in the art of command at sea and the tactics required to achieve a great victory over his nation’s enemies, sure that those now leading the fleets were inferior to him in all regards. Thus he bombarded the Admiralty with pleas for a position suited to the talents he held were his and lived in constant fury at the rebuffs he received, however politely they were couched. His face, now showing doubt, told Emily that she had struck home, that Sumner was wondering if he had inadvertently overreached himself.
‘The Tower,’ he said weakly.
‘Perhaps not that, sir, but certainly censure. I decline to mention the fate of Admiral Byng.’
No word could have hit home harder to a vainglorious fool; Byng had been shot by firing squad on his own quarterdeck for his failures off Minorca. But there was the matter of dignity, not to say the need to cover what might prove to have been a mistake.
‘Madam, I will not receive censure for doing my duty.’
‘I was rather referring to your exceeding it, sir.’
Sumner pulled himself up to his full, if insubstantialheight and again used the horsewhip to point at Emily, jabbing it to make his purpose plain. ‘I judge by your manner and facility of tongue that you are a lady of some intelligence. It may be you speak the truth. Have no doubt I will make enquiries regarding that—’
‘Do so, Admiral Sumner,’ Emily responded, cutting right across him again and forcing onto her face a knowing smile that did not lack a trace of pity; she did not feel as relaxed as she hoped she looked, for in her chest her heart was pounding, as it had been since she had come through the door. ‘I see you as a man who cares not one jot for the peril to which he may expose himself and perhaps it will be seen as such. Then again, perhaps it will not. What a sad end it will be to a long and no doubt distinguished career, in the service of His Majesty.’
That got a meaningless grunt, but it also got him brushing past her and out into the street. Emily did not turn to see him go, she looked hard at the innkeeper.
‘Be so good as to fetch my luggage and then, when you have done that, make sure that a place is booked for me on the morning coach. I shall, of course, eat in my rooms tonight, and as to payments made and reimbursement, I will leave my husband to deal with that on his return to England. Added to that you will observe the mud on the hem of my dress. I require that to be cleaned.’
The entirely made-up posture held until Emily was safe in her little parlour. Only then did the facade crack and tears begin to wet her pupils as she realised what a close call it had been. She had lied so convincingly and, looking around the rooms in which she and John Pearce had made love against all the laws of the land and holymatrimony, it made her wonder just how much the standards by which she had been raised had been eroded, which was not a comfortable state of mind.
The use of the long oars, even with the tide to help, ensured that progress was slow, so it was late afternoon before Buckler’s Hard came into sight. HMS
Larcher
swept round the last bend in the river, a turn of ninety degrees that allowed the wind to play on what little sail Pearce had kept aloft and they assisted the forward movement. This relieved a weary crew to go about the duties required to get the armed cutter to a berth and obliged Pearce to put back on his heavy blue coat, for a boat had set off immediately they were sighted to lead them to the mid-river buoy to which they were to tie up.
There was little to see other than that for which the hamlet had been created by a long-dead Lord Montague; it was a site for shipbuilding set at the base of the New Forest, with enough water to float out empty hulls at high
Similar Books
