Hervey 09 - Man Of War by Allan Mallinson

the ship was ready to change to the night routine.
    ‘Very good, Mr Lambe. Secure guns and pipe down hammocks.’
    ‘Ay-ay, sir!’
    Peto cast his eye about one more time. ‘And I would see Mr Pelham back in his place as soon as may be.’
    ‘Ay-ay, sir.’
    ‘And you will join me at dinner?’
    ‘With great pleasure, sir.’
    Peto nodded, his look softening to something approaching a smile, and turned for his cabin.
    An hour later, in fresh linen and his second-best coat, Peto stood looking out of the stern windows, the brilliant red twilight a picture he thought the finest of artists would never be able to capture faithfully, for it was more than mere colour. It would not be long before the moon was up – a good moon, he expected – and they ought to be able to keep a fair rate of sailing throughout the silent hours (the wake was whitening – no doubt of it).
    He ducked into the starboard quarter gallery to observe the set of the sails for a last time before dinner. Hands were already taking in the topgallants; he could want no more of his lieutenant and the master. But then, with but a handful of three-deckers in commission, why should it be other? There was many an able officer who would no more go to sea, for all his capability.
    Things had certainly changed, he mused. Except the ships themselves. Rupert was built a little stronger, perhaps, but in essence – in detail indeed – she was just as Victory . And at Trafalgar Victory had been forty years old. In his time in the East, and lately beached in Norfolk, he had given these matters much thought. He had seen steam manoeuvring to advantage at Rangoon – and, indeed, he had come to Gibraltar by steam packet (though sail had, in truth, conveyed him for much of that journey) – and although he could not imagine how a paddle wheel might move a ship of the Line, he thought it not improbable that some keen-witted engineer would find a way. And if somehow the army’s Shrapnel shell might be adapted, or even one that might explode and rupture a ship’s side, would that not spell the end of the wooden walls? The Navy Board would have to clad its ships in iron, like the knights of old. And had not the knights then become immobile?
    He sighed. Would it come in his time? It was strange: in one breath he longed for the innovation, for the capability was there and others might seize it (the Americans for sure would be thinking of it: they held the old ways in little regard. And the French, of course. None but a fool doubted they were the better shipbuilders; it had been as well they were not the better sailors!). And was not any advantage to be taken to defeat the King’s enemies? Yet in another breath he wished for not one jot of change, for it was the old world that had served so well, and he had mastered it.
    If ever he got his flag and it ended up being soot-specked at the mizzen . . . Well, it would at least be a flag. He had always reckoned that had he been born twenty years earlier he would have made Vice; but now he would be content to retire a rear admiral, and doubtless he would fly his flag ashore rather than at the mizzen mast of a line-of-battle ship.
    A confident knock at the cabin door brought him back to the present.
    ‘Come in!’ he roared (though with the ship under weigh it would have sounded fainter to whoever knocked).
    The door opened and Admiral Codrington’s youngest daughter stepped inside, escorted by Lambe.
    Her appearance gave Peto some surprise. She had put her hair up. She wore a white, long-sleeved muslin dress, embroidered and satin-trimmed, with a gathered bodice and pointed lapels. About her neck were coral and pearls. She looked nearer sixteen than thirteen.
    Peto shifted awkwardly. ‘Miss . . . Rebecca: good evening.’
    She curtsied. ‘Good evening, Captain Peto. This is a very pleasant apartment.’
    He cleared his throat. ‘Indeed, yes, though in the service we call it a cabin. Only the admiral’s is called apartment